Goldilocks
name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A person with golden hair, especially a girl with long hair.
- 2 early-flowering perennial of southern and southeastern Europe with flower heads resembling those of goldenrod wordnet
- 3 A goldilocks aster, Aster linosyris.
- 1 The protagonist of a traditional fairy tale. She is a golden-haired young girl who inquisitively enters the house of three bears and tries their three bowls of porridge, three chairs, and three beds, in each case finding only one that suits her.
"Tennis players are the Goldilocks characters of sports. The balls are too big, or too small. The courts are too fast, or too slow. It’s too cold, or too hot, or too sticky, or too sunny."
- 2 A happy medium or optimal point between two extremes. attributive
"Once the appropriate levels are stabilized at a Goldilocks level, not too detailed nor too summarized, then the connection of the ABC/M data to business problems, their analysis, and ultimate solutions can follow."
Example
More examples"Algeria is in a geographical Goldilocks zone."
Etymology
From goldy + locks. Goldilocks is a traditional children's story and its protagonist.
Apparently from goldilocks, equivalent to goldy + locks (“tuft of hair, curl”).
Related phrases
More for "goldilocks"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.