silk
/sɪlk/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.11 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "We harvested a load of silk from the silkworm farm."
- "This is sewn from silk."
- "I'll buy a couple yards of silk."
- "It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park side."
- "She's a master with the silks."
- "He's wearing his silk."
Etymology
From Middle English silk, sylk, selk, selc, from Old English sioloc, seoloc, seolc (“silk”). The immediate source is uncertain; it probably reached English via the Baltic trade routes (cognates in Old Norse silki (> Danish silke, Swedish silke (“silk”)), Russian шёлк (šolk), obsolete Lithuanian zilkai̇̃), all ultimately from Late Latin sēricus, from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós), ultimately from an Oriental language (represented now by e.g. Chinese 絲 /丝 (sī, “silk”)). Displaced Old English sīde (“silk”). Compare Seres. Doublet of seric and serge.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: silk, sioloc, sēricus, σηρικός