silver
/ˈsɪl.vɚ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.81 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A lustrous, white, metallic element, atomic number 47, atomic weight 107.87, symbol Ag.
Uncountable
noun
Cutlery and other eating utensils, whether silver or made from some other white metal.
Countable; Uncountable
adj
Made from silver.
Example Sentences
- "[…] maybe two or three twenties, a dozen tens, and twenty or thirty fins. The rest is all aces and silver."
- "I'll need some mayonnaise and a silver tin of sardines, a banana."
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "Mostly, these have been relationships of 10 or less years. However, one respondent has celebrated her silver wedding anniversary."
Etymology
Etymology tree substratebor.? Proto-Germanic *silubrą Proto-West Germanic *silubr Old English seolfor Middle English silver English silver Inherited 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 4 (“denoting a twenty-fifth anniversary”) generalized from silver wedding, itself a calque of German Silberhochzeit.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: silver,selver,sulver, seolfor, *silubr, *silubrą, -
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈsɪl.vɚ/
- British English: /ˈsɪl.və/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.
Inflected Forms
silvers (plural)
more silver (comparative)
most silver (superlative)
silvers (present, singular)
silvering (participle, present)
silvered (participle, past)
silvered (past)
Derived Forms
Phrases
argento-
argentum nitricum
Rio de la Plata
30 pieces of silver
ale silver
antimonial silver
bismuth-silver
black silver