goldbeater

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search

English

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

From Middle English goldbeter, equivalent to gold +‎ beater.

Pronunciation

[edit]

Noun

[edit]

goldbeater (plural goldbeaters)

  1. A craftsman who creates gold leaf by hammering gold bars.
    • 2004, Paul Fattaruso, Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf, →ISBN, page 26:
      Zebedee went to the goldbeaters shop, which smelled like lamb because the goldbeater ate a sandwich of lamb every day for lunch.
    • 2015, Ed Regis, Monsters: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technology, →ISBN:
      The membrane had been used, perhaps since antiquity, to make gold leaf, which goldbeaters produced by starting out with a small ingot of gold and beating it thinner, then sandwiching the leaves between sheets of cow intestines, ultimately creating a stack of alternating goldbeater's skins and gold leaf that could be more than 100 layers deep.
    • 2017, Laura Morelli, The Painter's Apprentice: A Novel of 16th-Century Venice, →ISBN:
      In my mind's eye, I see Cristiano on the day he first arrived in my father's workshop, the old goldbeater's assistant now grown into a man.

Derived terms

[edit]