goldilocks

noun

1. A person with golden hair, especially a girl with long hair.
2. A goldilocks aster, Aster linosyris.

name

1. The protagonist of a traditional fairy tale. She is a golden-haired young girl who inquisitively enters the house of three bears and tries their three bowls of porridge, three chairs, and three beds, in each case finding only one that suits her.

   “Tennis players are the Goldilocks characters of sports. The balls are too big, or too small. The courts are too fast, or too slow. It’s too cold, or too hot, or too sticky, or too sunny.”

2. (attributive)A happy medium or optimal point between two extremes.

   “Once the appropriate levels are stabilized at a Goldilocks level, not too detailed nor too summarized, then the connection of the ABC/M data to business problems, their analysis, and ultimate solutions can follow.”

   “The mathematically rigorous texts, on the other hand, are unreadable for the non- specialist. I was looking for something in-between, a Goldilocks volume pitched just at my level, neither too easy nor too difficult.”

   “He sighed at the Goldilocks temperature. Jane might think different, but this felt perfect to him.”