gold-diggingn.
/ˈɡəʊl(d)ˌdɪɡɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈɡoʊl(d)ˌdɪɡɪŋ/ 1.
a. The action or occupation of digging for gold.
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society > occupation and work > industry > mining > [noun] > for gold
gold-digging1825
1825 New Monthly Mag. 14 193 Many a scheme for pearl-diving, gold-digging, Thames-preaching, road-railing, and Jeremy Bentham knows what beside.
1829 Columbia (S. Carolina) Telescope 24 July The ‘gold fever’ as it is humorously termed, is at this moment spreading with contagious fury... Companies, for gold-digging, are already in embryo.
1869 R. D. Blackmore Lorna Doone III. ix. 145 My refusal to become a slave to the gold-digging.
1904 Queensland Govt. Mining Jrnl. 15 Nov. 554/1 All except one or two of the original prospectors were new to gold digging.
1962 P. R. May West Coast Gold Rushes xi. 285 Gold-digging was a hard game: the halt and the lame, the aged and infirm, had been weeded out long since.
1985 H. H. Bretnor in J. N. Perlot Gold Seeker p. xxiv He supplemented his income from gold digging by supplying local butchers with game.
2010 K. Werthmann in U. Freitag & A. von Oppen Translocality 114 Gold digging in Burkina Faso is pursued..as a full-time occupation by professional itinerant gold diggers.
b. In plural. A place where gold-digging is carried on; an excavation. Cf. digging n. 4a. Now chiefly historical.
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the world > the earth > minerals > mineral sources > [noun] > tract of land
ground1548
coalfield1734
gas field1833
tin-ground1839
gold-diggings1848
goldfield1848
oilfield1863
oil belt1865
flat1869
tin-field1898
copper belt1955
oil patch1958
1848 Observer 31 Dec. 4/4 Americans, Californians, and Indians had all gone to the ‘gold diggings’.
1883 Cent. Mag. Feb. 576/2 Fate threw him among the Indians of the far West, presumably on his way from the gold-diggings, and he became a medicine-man.
1936 I. L. Idriess Cattle King xiii. 121 So started the first ration store on the gold-diggings at Tibooburra.
1964 C. Yee Silent Traveller in San Francisco i. 15 Immediately after the discovery of gold..in the Sierra Foothills most of this group of Chinese went to work in the new gold-diggings.
2003 Guardian 15 Apr. (G2 section) 20/1 At Vaughan [sc. in Victoria, Austral.].., there are scars of bare red earth where swathes of vegetation were torn up for the gold diggings.
2. figurative. colloquial (originally U.S.). The action of forming a romantic or sexual relationship with another person, purely to obtain money or other gifts.
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1922 C. Porter Bandit Band 4 That bandit band... Gold-digging is it's [sic] game, And woman's just another name For bandit, but a diff'rent brand.
1953 Caddie xxvi. 141 Two of the other barmaids..went in for a bit of gold-digging.
1990 P. Erens Issues in Feminist Film Crit. ii. 94 Lorelei's..gold digging is not condemned within the film, but rather viewed as a form of female enterprise.
2017 Sunday Tel. (Nexis) 9 July 19 There is always something a little nauseating about millionaires who marry other millionaires, but actually it's for the best: no one can be accused of gold-digging.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
gold-diggingadj.
/ˈɡəʊl(d)ˌdɪɡɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈɡoʊl(d)ˌdɪɡɪŋ/ 1. Engaged in digging for gold.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > industry > mining > [adjective] > connected with extraction
gold-digging1778
extractive1848
1778 T. Cogan John Buncle II. xvii. 218 As to those gold digging Slaves, I will not now litigate their title to being useful members of society.
1802 Monthly Mag. 14 93/1 (title) Gold-digging ants, and the griffins of the ancients.
1857 W. W. Wright Doré 155 From the king's palace to..the desolate cabin of the gold-digging miner.
1956 C. Reznikoff tr. I. J. Benjamin Three Years in Amer. II. xiii. 91 He had charge and command of a tribe of gold-digging Indians who worked for him and had to bring him their rich find of gold-dust.
1979 R. Brambilla & G. Longo Learning from Seattle (1980) 85 During the Gold Rush, Pioneer Square..was the locus of activity for the transient gold-digging population.
2007 H. L. Miller in E. Arnesen Encycl. U.S. Labor & Working-class Hist. III. 1135/2 Families followed the gold-digging men and women a few years later, creating a more civilized feel.
2. figurative. colloquial (originally U.S.). Designating or characteristic of a person (originally and esp. a woman) given to forming romantic or sexual relationships purely to obtain money or other gifts; (hence) acquisitive, avaricious, predatory.
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1925 Oelwein (Iowa) Daily Reg. 3 Mar. 4/3 Hope Hampton represents the Broadway cabaret star, Dagmar Godowsky, the gold-digging vampire.
1958 Times 2 Oct. 3/1 To his gold-digging mistress the publisher..is an ageing man foolishly pretending to be younger than he is.
1983 J. Smith Caprice x. 186 Even when I thought you were a gold-digging hussy, I wanted you.
2006 Sunday Life (Belfast) (Nexis) 22 Oct. 51 There's a JR-type businessman who has shacked up with a gold-digging young blonde.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1825adj.1778