gold leaf

gold leaf (uncountable)

1. Gold beaten into a thin sheet.
   • 1697, Remarks Upon a Scurrilous Libel‎:

     But this Cobweb Lawn is too thin; a gold Leaf to cover the forgoing poison: For nothing is more plain, that he means, that the King is the Head Conspirator in all this slavery […]

   • 1712, The miscellaneous works of Oliver Goldsmith‎, volume 4, page 11:

     The streets of Nankin are sometimes strewed with gold leaf; very different are those of London: in the midst of their pavements, a great lazy puddle moves muddily along […]

   • 1860 January 7, The Chemical News‎, page 55:

     I cannot take a better illustration of this than that of gold leaf, because it brings before us the reason of this apparent difference in the time of the fall.

   • 1956, Daniel Varney Thompson, The Materials and Techniques of Medieval Painting‎:

     After the gesso was quite smooth and even it was covered with thin layers of tempered bole, to form a colour ground under the gold leaf, and to provide a sleek, lustrous cushion for the under side of the gold to rest on while the burnisher was pressing on the top.

   • 2001, Milton Ohring, Materials Science of Thin Films‎, page xix:

     Today, gold leaf can be machine-beaten to 0.1 micron and to 0.05 micron when beaten by a skilled craftsman.

• gold-leaf electrometer
• gold-leaf electroscope
• gold-leaf galvanoscope