Meaning
Any idol of wealth or power worshipped in place of what actually matters - money as an end in itself, or a symbol mistaken for the thing it represents. The accusation is always that people have bowed down to something they made themselves. A strong accusation of idolatry, so it suits sermons, polemic, and satire rather than neutral description; usually constructed as worship or bow down to. Regional use: General English; Biblical origin.
Origin
Exodus 32: Moses is forty days on Mount Sinai receiving the law, and the impatient Israelites demand of Aaron a god to go before them; he collects their golden earrings, fashions a calf, and announces the festival at which the people eat, drink, and rise to dance. Moses descends, smashes the tablets, burns the calf, grinds it to powder, scatters it on water, and makes the people drink it; three thousand die before the episode closes. The figurative sense is as old as the prophets' use of the episode: Wikipedia records that the golden calf became a metaphor for wealth or material gain treated as an object of devotion, with the Spanish becerro de oro carrying the same load, and Wiktionary's senses run from Aaron's image to money as an end in itself - Mammon - and any object of unworthy worship. Culture has kept it fed: Gounod's Faust airs that the golden calf is always standing, Ilf and Petrov satirized a Soviet one, and every decade brings new comparisons, from the Cave of the Golden Calf nightclub to golden statues at political conferences.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- bow down to the golden calf
- the calf of gold
- worship the golden calf
Usage Examples
- The party's old guard accused the leadership of worshipping the golden calf of focus-group politics.
- Critics said the league had bowed down to the golden calf of broadcast money and moved every kickoff to suit it.
- He forsook research for the golden calf of consultancy fees, and regretted it at every board dinner.