Wiktionary

silver

See also: Silver

English

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Etymology

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From Middle English silver, selver, sulver, from Old English seolfor, from Proto-West Germanic *silubr, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą (“silver”), of uncertain origin.

cognates and etymology discussion

Cognate with Scots siller (“silver”), Saterland Frisian Säälwer (“silver”), West Frisian sulver (“silver”), Dutch zilver (“silver”), German Low German Silver, Sülver (“silver”), German Silber (“silver”), Swedish silver (“silver”), Icelandic silfur (“silver”). The Germanic word has parallels in Baltic and Slavic (Old Church Slavonic сьрєбро (sĭrebro), Lithuanian sidabras), Celtic (Celtiberian silaPur-), and outside Indo-European, in Basque zilar and Proto-Berber *a-ẓrəf, but the ultimate origin of the word is unknown.

Adjective sense of twenty-fifth wedding anniversary generalized from silver wedding, from German Silberhochzeit, silberne Hochzeit.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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silver (countable and uncountable, plural silvers)

Chemical element
Ag
Previous: palladium (Pd)
Next: cadmium (Cd)
  2. (uncountable) A lustrous, white, metallic element, atomic number 47, atomic weight 107.87, symbol Ag.
    Synonyms: (alchemy) ☽, ☾
  3. (collectively) Coins made from silver or any similar white metal.
    • 1990, David F. Friedman, Don DeNevi, A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-film King, page 136:
      […] maybe two or three twenties, a dozen tens, and twenty or thirty fins. The rest is all aces and silver.
  4. (collectively) Cutlery and other eating utensils, whether silver or made from some other white metal.
  5. (collectively) Any items made from silver or any other white metal.
  6. (uncountable) A shiny gray color.
    • 2017, Sam Shepard, chapter 27, in Spy of the First Person, →ISBN, page 62:
      I'll need some mayonnaise and a silver tin of sardines, a banana.
    silver:  
  7. (countable) a silver medal
  8. Anything resembling silver; something shiny and white.
    • 1909 April 10, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “[The Time Machine and Other Stories]. The Beautiful Suit.”, in The Short Stories of H. G. Wells, London: Ernest Benn Limited […], published September 1927, →OCLC, pages 162–163:
      And next morning they found him dead, with his neck broken, in the bottom of the stone pit, with his beautiful clothes a little bloody, and foul and stained with the duckweed from the pond. But his face was a face of such happiness that, had you seen it, you would have understood indeed how that he had died happy, never knowing that cool and streaming silver for the duckweed in the pond.

Synonyms

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Descendants

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  • Jamaican Creole: silva
  • → Maori: hiriwa
  • → Zulu: isiliva

Translations

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See silver/translations § Noun.

Adjective

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silver (comparative more silver, superlative most silver)

 
Silver Roman artwork
  1. Made from silver.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.
    • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:
      But Richmond […] appeared to lose himself in his own reflections. Some pickled crab, which he had not touched, had been removed with a damson pie; and his sister saw, peeping around the massive silver epergne that almost obscured him from her view, that he had eaten no more than a spoonful of that either.
  2. Made from another white metal.
  3. Having a color like silver: a shiny gray.
  4. Denoting the twenty-fifth anniversary, especially of a wedding.
    • 1994, “Mate matching” in Accent on Living, v 38, n 4 (Spring), p 52:
      Mostly, these have been relationships of 10 or less years. However, one respondent has celebrated her silver wedding anniversary.
  5. (of commercial services) Premium, but inferior to gold.
  6. Having the clear, musical tone of silver; soft and clear in sound.
    a silver-voiced young girl

Synonyms

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  • (made from silver): silvern (literary)
  • (having a color like silver): silvery

Translations

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See silver/translations § Adjective.

See also

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Verb

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silver (third-person singular simple present silvers, present participle silvering, simple past and past participle silvered)

  1. To acquire a silvery colour.
    • 1880 November 12, Lew[is] Wallace, chapter IV, in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, book sixth, page 416:
      Presently all the eastern sky began to silver and shine, and objects before invisible in the west—chiefly the tall towers on Mount Zion—emerged as from a shadowy depth, [...]
    • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Silverside”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 281:
      But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat's-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon.
  2. To cover with silver, or with a silvery metal.
    to silver a pin;  to silver a glass mirror plate with an amalgam of tin and mercury
  3. To polish like silver; to impart a brightness to, like that of silver.
  4. To make hoary, or white, like silver.

Derived terms

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from all parts of speech

References

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Further reading

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  • David Barthelmy (1997–2024) “Silver”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
  • “silver”, in Mindat.org‎[1], Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2024.

Anagrams

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Hunsrik

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Etymology

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From Middle High German silber, from Old High German silbar, from Proto-West Germanic *silubr.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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silver

  1. silvern

Declension

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Declension of silver (see also Appendix:Hunsrik adjectives)
masculine feminine neuter plural
Weak inflection nominative silver silver silver silve
accusative silve silver silver silve
dative silve silve silve silve
Strong inflection nominative silver silve silves silve
accusative silve silve silves silve
dative silvem silver silvem silve

Further reading

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Middle Dutch

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Etymology

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From Old Dutch silver, from Proto-West Germanic *silubr.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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silver n

  1. silver

Inflection

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This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

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Further reading

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old English seolfor, seolofor (“silver”).

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈsilvər/, /ˈsɛlvər/

Noun

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silver (plural silvers)

  1. silver (metal)
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Descendants

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Old Swedish

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old Norse silfr, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą.

Noun

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silver n

  1. silver

Declension

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Declension of silfr (strong a-stem)
neuter singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative silfr silfrit silfr silfrin
accusative silfr silfrit silfr silfrin
dative silfri, silfre silfrinu, silfreno silfrum, silfrom silfrumin, silfromen
genitive silfrs silfrsins silfra silfranna

Descendants

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Scots

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Pronunciation

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Adjective

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silver (not comparable) (Cromarty)

  1. Alternative form of siller

Noun

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silver (uncountable) (Cromarty)

  1. Alternative form of siller

References

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  • Am Baile (2009) The Cromarty Fisherfolk Dialect‎[3], Highland Council, page 35

Swedish

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Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia sv
Chemical element
Ag
Previous: palladium (Pd)
Next: kadmium (Cd)

Etymology

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From Old Swedish silver, from Old Norse silfr, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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silver n (uncountable)

  1. silver
  2. silver, coins of silver
  3. silver, cutlery of silver
  4. a silver medal, for 2nd place in a competition

Declension

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Declension of silver
nominative genitive
singular indefinite silver silvers
definite silvret silvrets
plural indefinite silver silvers
definite silvren silvrens

Derived terms

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References

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