Word.ws English Dictionary

kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

kill the goose that lays the golden eggs verb: to seek short-term gain at the sacrifice of long-term profit.

Verb

kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (third-person singular simple present kills the goose that lays the golden eggs, present participle killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, simple past and past participle killed the goose that laid the golden eggs)

  1. (idiomatic) To seek short-term gain at the sacrifice of long-term profit.
    • Have the increases in ordinary fares begun to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?1962 December, “Talking of Trains: Passenger traffic declining”, in Modern Railways, page 364
    Synonyms:
    take the short view

Synonyms of kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

  • take the short view

Forms of kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

third-person singular presentkills the goose that lays the golden eggs
present participlekilling the goose that lays the golden eggs
past participlekilled the goose that laid the golden eggs
pastkilled the goose that laid the golden eggs

Origin of kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

From the Aesop's fable The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs, in which a married couple own a goose that lays one golden egg every day. Because of greed, they decide to kill the goose to obtain all the gold they suppose to be present in its body. Once opened, the goose proves to be like any normal goose inside.

Questions about kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

What does kill the goose that lays the golden eggs mean?
Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs means to seek short-term gain at the sacrifice of long-term profit.
What part of speech is kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?
Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs is a verb.
What is the past tense of kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?
The past tense of kill the goose that lays the golden eggs is killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Words near kill the goose that lays the golden eggs in the dictionary

  1. kill switch
  2. kill switches
  3. kill team
  4. kill teams
  5. kill the fatted calf
  6. kill the goose that lays the golden eggs
  7. kill the messenger
  8. kill the rabbit
  9. kill time
  10. kill trees
  11. kill two birds with one shot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kill the goose that lays the golden eggs (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.ogg.

Cite this entry: “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kill_the_goose_that_lays_the_golden_eggs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.