Definition of "gold leaf" []

• Gold beaten into extremely thin sheets used especially for gilding. (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 barge was wide and comfortably appointed with luxurious touches: a fully staffed kitchen, a dining room with goblets and gold plates, beds with gold leaf on the headboards, privy stool-closets hung with crimson velvet and perfumed with fresh irises in a silver vase fastened to the wall."
• "The ballroom at Dunbarton Hall, though rather small in comparison with some of the grander ballrooms that entertained the ton during the Season in London, was nevertheless splendidly decorated with gold leaf and paintings and chandeliers, and its size had been artfully enhanced by a coved ceiling and by huge mirrors along one long wall."
• "For gold leaf dissolved by aqua regia gives no heat to the touch; no more does lead dissolved in aqua fortis; neither again does quicksilver"