Meaning
An idyllic earlier period of peace, prosperity, happiness and achievement, whether real or imagined, usually identified in hindsight; 'the golden age of radio', 'a golden age for Dutch painting'. It can also be used prospectively or ironically of any high-water mark, and it retains the specific classical sense of the first, blissful age of humankind. Elevated but extremely common; earnestly nostalgic, promotional, or gently ironic depending on context. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The model is Hesiod's Works and Days (the poet dated between 750 and 650 BC), which describes five ages of man named for declining metals - gold, silver, bronze, then a heroic exception, then iron - with the golden race under Cronus enjoying effortless plenty, long peaceful lives and no toil before a slow decline into hardship. Roman writers transmitted the idea to Europe: Ovid retold it as four ages in the Metamorphoses, the main channel through which the myth reached the West, and Virgil's pastoral poetry deepened the nostalgia. Etymonline dates the English phrase 'golden age' for a period of past perfection to the 1550s, describing it as a concept drawn from Greek and Latin writers. From the Renaissance on, the label was applied to real historical peaks - the Spanish siglo de oro, the Dutch Golden Age, Hollywood's golden age - almost always named after the fact, which is itself part of the idiom's point: golden ages are recognised when over.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a golden age for something
- a new golden age
- golden era
- golden-age (attributive)
Usage Examples
- Historians still argue whether the 1950s were truly a golden age or merely cheap fuel and cheap memory.
- Streaming has opened a golden age for television drama, and everyone has a favourite decade to contrast it with.
- She called her grandmother's accounts of the village's golden age gently exaggerated.