goldie

From gold +‎ -ie.

• Rhymes: -əʊldi

goldie (plural goldies)

1. Something which is golden in color.
   • 2008, Where to Fly Fish in Britain and Ireland, page 84:

     You'd expect the rainbows and possibly the browns, but not the blues and the goldies, which can look truly spectacular.

   • 2009, Charles R. Twyman, Daddy, There's a Light in the Sky: An Illumination of Life Stories, →ISBN:

     The coupons were called greenies, brownies, and goldies. A bicycle could be gotten for 500 goldies. Neither Ray nor I ever acquired a bicycle. But I accumulated a cigar box full of greenies, brownies and a few goldies.

   • 2010, Bernard Glassman, Rick Fields, Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons, →ISBN:

     We began by experimenting in the Greyston kitchen during the night. We made brownies, goldies, coffee cakes […]

   1. (UK, birdwatching) The golden eagle.
      • 1958, The A-V., volumes 66-70:

        Young "baldies" look just like "goldies" and are often shot by mistake.

      • 2004, McSweeney's, number 14, page 124:

        […] the golden eagle is the champion predator. And the most handsome, according to ornithologists, who affectionately call their subjects "goldies".

      • 2009, John A. Love, A natural history of St. Kilda:

        Golden eagles took up old eyries on Hebridean sea cliffs only after the white-tailed sea eagle became extinct. Goldies may hunt seabirds but never fish, and they always resort to flying inland for rabbits or hares as preferred prey.

   2. (UK, birdwatching) The golden plover.
      • 2005, Mark Cocker, Richard Mabey, Birds Britannica‎:

        “Each time the golden plover moved, its dunlin attendant followed, but when the goldie flew off to land on a wooden post, it triggered a bizarre cameo.

      • 2009, Jeremy Mynott, Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience:

        Both grey and golden had the folk name "whistling plover" in Britain, but you know from the habitat that Burns must have had the goldie in mind in his line, The deep-toned plover gray, wild whistling on the hill

      • 2010, Desmond Nethersole-Thompson, Waders: their Breeding, Haunts and Watchers‎, page 107:

        Dunlins, 'the plover's page', lay their eggs in wetter flows, usually those having a complex of small pools; we often watched the dunlins following the goldies.

   3. The goldfinch.
      • 1882, William Thomas Greene, editor, Notes on cage birds‎:

        I have tried Inga seed for canaries and goldfinches for three or four months, and can speak well of it. My birds, goldies especially, are very fond of it; these will pick it out and leave the canary seed, which they scarcely touch now.

      • 1889, George Muirhead, The Birds of Berwickshire‎, page 149:

        Mr. Peter Scott, Lauder, related that Goldfinches were common in Lauderdale about forty-five years ago, and that their nests were sometimes found about that time in the grounds of Thirlestane Castle. The rocky deans near the sea-coast at Lamberton are also said to have been frequented by "Goldies" in former times, and they were likewise found about Fairneyside.

      • 2014, Bill Adler, Outwitting Squirrels, page 34:

        I'm not trying to defend house finches—I'm wooed by goldies' looks like every other feeder—and I certainly think that house finches eat far more seed than they deserve.

   4. (informal) A goldfish.
      • 1999, Sutterkid, “fish”, in comp.bbs.tbbs (Usenet):

        Outdoor ponds provide the perfect environment for goldies and Koi.

   5. (informal) A Golden Retriever.
      • 2022 July 5, Alice Gibbs, “Golden Retriever's Reaction to Missing Snack Time Delights Internet”, in Newsweek‎:

        Incredibly, the reactions of the dogs differed between the instances. […] "It's the pursed lips that do it for me," said another comment: "My goldie used to do the same."

• sea goldie

• -golide, Goidel