Welcome to English in a Minute!  

Gold is a valuable material. We can dig gold out of mountains and get rich! So, is that what “gold digger” means?  

D: Bob seems really upset these days.  
A: That’s understandable. He lost a lot of money in the stock market. 
D: How did that happen? 
A: Bob needed a lot of money fast, or his wife said she was going to leave him.  
D: Wow! She sounds like a real gold digger.  

In the mid 1800s, lots of people went to the American West to dig for newly found gold. They were called gold diggers. But these days, a “gold digger” is a person who chooses their relationships based on money, not love.