gilded

adjective

gild·​ed ˈgil-dəd 

1

: covered or tinged with gold or a golden color

gilded icons

The reception room, just off the entryway, features colorful wall and ceiling decorations and a gilded overmantel mirror and matching cornices.

—Stephen May

2

: having a background of wealth and luxury : prosperous, luxurious

Emily Post was raised among New York's gilded elite.

—Susan Berfield

… despite the upper-crust background and the gilded résumé, Bonham Carter is a pretty modern chick off stage.

—Elizabeth Gleick

Examples of gilded in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Lit just right, the gilded panels, many of them newly restored, speak movingly of higher things. —Louise Bokkenheuser, Air Mail, 4 Oct. 2025

In one bar, their gamma ray wails seem teleported from a gilded and advanced future; in the next, explosions of wrath, lust, and violence feel like psalms freestyled onto tablets of red clay. —Pitchfork, 30 Sep. 2025

In the Oval Office, Trump, long a fan of the gilded look, added several golden accents, including a presidential seal featured on the ceiling over the Resolute Desk and trim along the room’s doorways. —Judy Kurtz, The Hill, 26 Sep. 2025

Crafted in Ireland, the coach features dark brown panels adorned with golden scrollwork and a gilded roof, offering shelter from the light rain falling over Berkshire. —Amanda Castro hannah Parry shane Croucher jack Royston, MSNBC Newsweek, 18 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

from past participle of gild entry 1

First Known Use

1540, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for gilded

• builded