What do you mean by "gold watching" it? For example, someone is "gold watching" something....

Question

People say: He is gold watching it. What does that mean?

Answer 1

I'm not sure of the context involved. If you hear this used in common disussion as slang, I would say they mean someone is counting the days till retirement. In former generations, it was common practice to give someone a gold watch when they retired from the company.

The term could also be used in finance to reference monitoring the value of the dollar based on the value of gold, so possibly putting off a purchase while waiting for a better rate. This is also a term used in government & military circles in reference to the failure of the military to request funding for necessary items & equipment and hoping that the government will then vote extra money for these items (they are watching their budgets - their gold). I suppose people who are former military could have decided to use this term as slang for not properly budgeting and hoping the money will turn up when needed.