I always thought that if something is made of gold, it is a gold thing, if it looks like gold but might not be, it is golden. But looking in the dictionary, I can see I was wrong.
In the Cambridge dictionary, for both gold and golden it reads:
made of gold, or the colour of gold
For "golden" it reads in also:
made of gold
Example sentences for gold:
She always does her presents up beautifully in gold and silver
paper.
She was wearing a gold Lurex top with a pink mini skirt.
There are a couple of fish with blue markings, and a few more with
gold stripes down the side.
- I understand in those examples "gold" refers to the color but why it is not golden?
- How would the meaning change if I put "golden" there?
- How to tell which one should I use?
Best Answer
I think the choice of "gold" and not "golden" in those examples has to do with parallelism. Other things are being described by color as well--the gold top and the pink skirt, the blue and gold fish.
Gold is the name of the color, so in a list of colors, gold is the preferred form. The meaning doesn't necessarily change if you say golden instead, it just makes the sentence less parallel.