silver

From Middle English silver, selver, sulver, from Old English seolfor, seolofor (“silver”), from Proto-Germanic *silubrą (“silver”), of uncertain origin. Cognate with 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”). A further derivation from Proto-Indo-European *silubʰr-, *silebʰr- (“silver”) is not supported by cognates outside of Proto-Germanic. 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, zilhar and further dialectal variants) and perhaps Berber (Tashelhit aẓrf), but the ultimate origin of the word is unknown. A Wanderwort of ultimately Semitic origin has been suggested (Akkadian 𒀫𒁍𒌝 (ṣurpum, “silver”), from 𒍝𒊏𒁍𒌝 (ṣarāpum, “to smelt or refine”)).[1] However at least one scholar has considered this phonologically and geographically improbable.

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/

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• Rhymes: -ɪlvə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: sil‧ver

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silver (countable and uncountable, plural silvers)

1. (uncountable) A lustrous, white, metallic element, atomic number 47, atomic weight 107.87, symbol Ag.
2. (collectively) Coins made from silver or any similar white metal.
3. (collectively) Cutlery and other eating utensils, whether silver or made from some other white metal.
4. (collectively) Any items made from silver or any other white metal.
5. (countable) A shiny gray color.

   silver colour:  

6. Anything resembling silver; something shiny and white.
   • 1909, H. G. Wells, The Beautiful Suit

     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)

• quicksilver
• silver glance, silver-glance
• silverling
• silvern
• thirty pieces of silver

silver (comparative more silver, superlative most silver)

Silver Roman artwork

1. Made from silver.
   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 10, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     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

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

• silver-feast
• silver wedding

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

1. To acquire a silvery colour.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Lewis Wallace

     The eastern sky began to silver and shine.

   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter VIII, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

     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.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Alexander Pope

     And smiling calmness silvered o'er the deep.

4. To make hoary, or white, like silver.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Gay

     His head was silvered o'er with age.

• “Silver” in David Barthelmy, Webmineral Mineralogy Database, 1997–.
• “silver”, in Mindat.org‎, Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, accessed 29 August 2016.

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈsilvɐ/

silver

1. silvern

• Online Hunsrik Dictionary

From Old Dutch silver, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą.

• IPA^(key): /ˈzɪlvər/

silver n

1. silver

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Dutch: zilver
• Limburgish: zèlver

• “silver”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• “silver”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, 1929

• seolver, sylver, selver, sulver

From Old English seolfor, seolofor (“silver”), from Proto-Germanic *silubrą (“silver”).

silver (plural silvers)

1. silver (metal)

• sylveren

• English: silver
• Scots: silver, siller

• sylver, sølver

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

silver n

1. silver

• Swedish: silver

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɪlvɛr/

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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 Svenska Akademiens ordlista över svenska språket (13th ed., online)