Word.ws English Dictionary

golden egg

golden egg noun: a source of consistent profit or advantage, or the profit gained by such advantage.

Noun

golden egg (plural golden eggs)

  1. A source of consistent profit or advantage, or the profit gained by such advantage.
    • Here’s golden eggs in plenty, why not the Golden Age? —
      The time the world is waiting, the day-dream of the sage;
      […]
      The golden eggs of Eight-Seven, after four years’ incubation,
      Should hatch a brood to scratch the good from out the whole creation,1887, Oliver Huckel, “The New Mother Goose”, in The Record. ’87, University of Pennsylvania, page 55
    • How certain Stockbrokers, not content with the golden eggs laid for them by a complaisant Goose, attempt to increase the output.1904, “Story of the Jobbers-Broker’s Union”, in Truth Christmas Number, page 28
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see golden, egg.

Examples of golden egg in a sentence

  • The more consistently you bring the same “golden egg” set of factors to a selling effort (integrity, professionalism, and reliability), the more probable a golden-egg outcome remains.2004, Todd Duncan, Killing the Sale: The 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople Make and How To Avoid Them, page 24:
  • By day, Burgener is setting up the new office and fielding media requests, by night, he sits down to start the real work of programming for his golden egg, 20Q.2005 October 15, Hattie Klotz, “The golden egg”, in Ottawa Citizen, page I2:

Forms of golden egg

pluralgolden eggs

Origin of golden egg

Allusion to “The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs”, one of Aesop’s Fables. Attested from the 18th century. Compare golden goose, kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Questions about golden egg

What does golden egg mean?
Golden egg means a source of consistent profit or advantage, or the profit gained by such advantage.
How do you use golden egg in a sentence?
The more consistently you bring the same “golden egg” set of factors to a selling effort (integrity, professionalism, and reliability), the more probable a golden-egg outcome remains.
What part of speech is golden egg?
Golden egg is a noun.
What is the plural of golden egg?
The plural of golden egg is golden eggs.

Words near golden egg in the dictionary

  1. golden dyssodias
  2. golden eagle
  3. golden eagles
  4. golden ear
  5. golden ears
  6. golden egg
  7. golden egg bug
  8. golden egg bugs
  9. golden eggs
  10. golden era
  11. golden eras

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: golden egg (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “golden egg.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/golden_egg. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.