Golden touch
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Synonym of Midas touch (“the ability to achieve financial reward (or, more generally, success) easily and consistently”). idiomatic
"In fine, his [Nathaniel Hawthorne's] golden touch is as unfailing as was that of Midas, and transmutes whatever he lays hand upon. [...] [H]e so transforms incidents and transactions of the most trivial character, as to render them grand, pathetic, or grotesque. [...] His golden touch, we would then say, imposes no superficial glitter, but brings out upon the surface, and concentrates into luminous points, the interior gilding, which is attached to the meanest objects and the lowliest scenes by their contact with the realm of sentiment, emotion, and spiritual life."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"In fine, his [Nathaniel Hawthorne's] golden touch is as unfailing as was that of Midas, and transmutes whatever he lays hand upon. [...] [H]e so transforms incidents and transactions of the most trivial character, as to render them grand, pathetic, or grotesque. [...] His golden touch, we would then say, imposes no superficial glitter, but brings out upon the surface, and concentrates into luminous points, the interior gilding, which is attached to the meanest objects and the lowliest scenes by their contact with the realm of sentiment, emotion, and spiritual life."
Etymology
From the Greek legend of King Midas, related in chapter XI of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 C.E.), whom Dionysus (the god of, among other things, wine and winemaking) gave the power to turn things to gold by touching them. Compare Midas touch.