Meaning & use
gold ingot
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Meanings
nouncountable
A solid block of gold that has been melted and poured into a mold, usually for storing or trading.
Grammar: Countable, so it takes a/an and a plural: a gold ingot, several gold ingots.
Patterns
- a gold ingot
- a bar of gold ingots
- store gold in ingots
The museum keeps a huge gold ingot behind thick glass.
Thieves stole two gold ingots from the vault and escaped by boat.
He poured the melted metal into a mold and left it to cool into a gold ingot.
nouncountabletechnical
A block of metal in this standard shape, used as a unit of value or as a raw material in industry.
Grammar: Often used with other metal names before it: a silver ingot, a steel ingot.
Patterns
- an ingot of gold
- cast something into ingots
- a shipment of ingots
The old foundry still casts steel ingots for the car industry.
Banks hold gold as ingots because the standard shape is easy to weigh and count.
The report said the country had sold most of its silver ingots to pay its debts.
Word forms
| plural | gold ingots |
|---|
Common combinations
- a solid gold ingot
- A solid gold ingot that size would be far too heavy to lift alone.
- cast an ingot
- Workers cast each ingot in a heavy iron mold.
- a stack of ingots
- A stack of ingots sat on the floor of the strongroom.
- gold bars and ingots
- Dealers trade in gold bars and ingots of every size.
- a one-kilogram ingot
- The bank sells a one-kilogram ingot to private buyers.
- melt something down into ingots
- Old coins were melted down into ingots and shipped abroad.
Synonyms and how they differ
- gold bar
- The everyday term for the same object; use it in normal conversation and 'ingot' when you want to sound technical.
- bullion
- This means gold or silver in bulk form, not one single block, so it fits sentences about trade and reserves rather than one object.
- nugget
- A nugget is a small lump of gold found in nature, not one that has been melted and shaped in a mold.
Word family
- ingot noun
- The general word for a block of cast metal, used without naming the metal.
- ingot iron noun
- A very pure kind of iron produced in ingot form for special uses.
Commonly confused: gold ingot or gold bullion? gold ingot or gold bar?
gold ingot vs gold bullion
Bullion refers to gold or silver valued by weight in bulk, while a gold ingot is one particular cast block of it.
gold ingot vs gold bar
These two words mean almost the same thing; 'bar' is the common everyday choice and 'ingot' sounds more industrial or official.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'gold ingot' correctly?
Choose one answer.
An ingot is a heavy cast block kept for storage or trade, so it belongs in a vault and can carry a weight stamp. A necklace would be jewelry, not an ingot; paying for coffee with one is impossible in practice; and planting one makes no sense.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “gold ingot”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.