Definition of "gold rush" []

• A rush of migrants to an area where gold has been discovered. (noun)
• Headlong pursuit of wealth and success: a gold rush on Wall Street. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The riches reaped by the privateers caused real problems on land, as fighting sailors routinely deserted the ships of the Continental Navy—and sometimes even their regiments in the army—to join the gold rush at sea."
• "Lines of ants were already on the move as I stepped outside, and the sun baked the reddish, sandy earth between the acacia bushes in this undulating, stony terrain left behind after the Bendigo gold rush of the 1850s."
• "It was busy enough, for the Australian gold rush of a few years back, and the Mutiny, had set the port booming, but the town itself was a damned Dutch-looking place with its stoeps and stolid stucco houses, most of which are gone now, I believe, and the great church clock tower which looks as though it should have an Oom Paul beard round its face."