auriferous

From Latin aurifer (“gold-bearing”) + the English suffix -ous. The Latin term in turn derived from aurum (“gold”) + ferō (“I carry”).

• IPA^(key): /ɔːˈɹɪfəɹəs/
• Rhymes: -ɪfəɹəs

auriferous (comparative more auriferous, superlative most auriferous)

1. Containing or producing gold; gold-bearing.
   • 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:

     Rocks rich in gems, and mountains big with mines, / That on the high equator ridgy riſe, / Whence many a burſting ſtream auriferous plays: [...]

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1887, R. A. Murray, Victoria. Geology and Physical Geography, page 126:

     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 [...]

• metalliferous

• -ferous