silver

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

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

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsɪl.və/
• (General American) enPR: sĭl'vər IPA^(key): /ˈsɪl.vɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɪlvə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: sil‧ver

• Audio (US):

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silver (countable and uncountable, plural silvers)

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.

• (metallic element): argyr-
• (white-metal coins): argyr-
• (cutlery and other eating utensils): silverware
• E174 (when used as a food colouring)

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

silver (comparative more silver, superlative most silver)

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. Pertaining or relating to elderly persons.

   Coordinate terms: silver-haired, senior

7. Having the clear, musical tone of silver; soft and clear in sound.

   a silver-voiced young girl

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

• Appendix:Colors

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.
   • 1725, Homer, “Book X”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume III, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC, page 17, lines 107–108:

     For here retir'd the ſinking billows ſleep, / And ſmiling calmneſs ſilver'd o'er the deep.

4. To make hoary, or white, like silver.
   • 1727, [John] Gay, “Introduction to the Fables. The Shepherd and the Philosopher.”, in Fables, 2nd edition, volume I, London: […] J[acob] Tonson and J. Watts, published 1728, →OCLC:

     Remote from cities liv'd a Swain, / Unvex'd with all the cares of gain, / His head was ſilver'd o'er with age, / And long experience made him ſage; [...]

• David Barthelmy (1997–2025) “Silver”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
• “silver”, in Mindat.org‎^[1], Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2025.

• Elvirs, levirs, livers, livres, rivels, sliver, svirel

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈsilva/
• Rhymes: -ilva
• Syllabification: sil‧ver

silver

1. silvern

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈzɪlvər/

silver n

1. silver

• Dutch: zilver
  • Afrikaans: silwer
  • Negerhollands: silver, zelva, selvu
  • Skepi Creole Dutch: solfer
  • → Caribbean Javanese: silfer
  • → Loup A: sinibat, chinebat, chinibat
  • → Mahican: sehnpatt, senpett
  • → Munsee: shulpul
  • → Sranan Tongo: sorfu, solfru, sorfru
    • → Saramaccan: sólófu, sóófu
  • → Unami: silpël
• Limburgish: zèlver

• “silver”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “silver”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN

• selver, sylver, seolver, sulver
• soelver (Herebert)

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈsilvər/, /ˈsɛlvər/

silver (plural silvers)

1. silver (metal)
   • c. 1275, Judas (Roud 2964, Child Ballad 23, Trinity College MS. B.14.39), folio 34, recto, lines 16-17; republished at Cambridge: Wren Digital Library (Trinity College), 2019 May 29:

     Sone ſo iudaſ of ſlepe waſ awake. / þritti platen of ſelu[er] from hym weren itake.

     As soon as Judas had awakened from his rest, / thirty pieces of silver had been taken from him.

• sylveren

• English: silver
  • Jamaican Creole: silva
  • → Maori: hiriwa
  • → Zulu: isiliva
• Scots: silver, siller

• sylver, sølver

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

silver n

1. silver

• Swedish: silver

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɪlvəɹ/

silver (not comparable) (Cromarty)

1. alternative form of siller

silver (uncountable) (Cromarty)

1. alternative form of siller

• Am Baile (2009) The Cromarty Fisherfolk Dialect‎^[2], Highland Council, page 35

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɪlvɛr/

• Audio:

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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

• silver in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• silver in Svenska Akademiens ordböcker
• silver in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)
• Svensk MeSH