auriferous
adjUK /ɔːˈɹɪfəɹəs/
Etymology From Latin aurifer (“gold-bearing”) + the English suffix -ous. The Latin term in turn derived from aurum (“gold”) + ferō (“to carry”).
1
Containing or producing gold; gold-bearing.
- Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines, / That on the high equator ridgy riſe, / Whence many a burſting ſtream auriferous plays: [...]a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Summer”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, pages 70–71, lines 646–648:
- To these [compounds] belong native gold, alloys of gold and silver, and the argentiferous gold, or auriferous silver, obtained from the assayings of auriferous minerals and ores.1854, Carl Friedrich Plattner, Sheridan Muspratt, The Use of the Blowpipe in the Qualitative and Quantitative Examination of Minerals, Ores, Furnace Products, and Other Metallic Combinations:
1 more example
- In some places, however, quartz reefs, payably auriferous while in Silurian rock, have been followed down to subjacent granite, and have there been found to thin out and become unprofitable [...]1887, R. A. Murray, Victoria. Geology and Physical Geography, page 126:
- Derived terms
- auriferously, auriferousness, non-auriferous
- Related terms
- -ferous
- Hypernyms
- metalliferous