Word.ws English Dictionary

potable gold

potable gold noun: a theoretical substance which would confer eternal life on the drinker.

Noun

potable gold (uncountable)

  1. A theoretical substance which would confer eternal life on the drinker.
    • This tradition found its way to the West in the notion of ‘potable gold’ (aurum potabile), a medicine that, if drunk, would cure all manner of ills.2002, Philip Ball, The Elements: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, published 2004, page 60
    Synonyms:
    elixir of life
  2. (historical) A preparation consisting of gold particles in oil and alcohol.
    • The tincture of the gold known as Mademoiselle Grimaldi's potable gold had a wide reputation in the eighteenth century as an aphrodisiac stimulant.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 234

Synonyms of potable gold

Origin of potable gold

From potable + gold. From being something drinkable that is like gold. * (alchemy): from being an elixir that confers the untarnishability and eternity of gold to a person

Questions about potable gold

What does potable gold mean?
Potable gold means a theoretical substance which would confer eternal life on the drinker.
What part of speech is potable gold?
Potable gold is a noun.

Words near potable gold in the dictionary

  1. potabilizer
  2. potabilizers
  3. potabilizes
  4. potabilizing
  5. potable
  6. potable gold
  7. potableness
  8. potables
  9. potadromous
  10. potage
  11. potager

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: potable gold (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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