Skip to content

silent

adjective

  1. making no utterance, not speaking or making noise
L10649 on Wikidata ↗

noun

  1. Sekai no Owari single
L327793 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈsaɪ̯lənt/ / [ˈsaɪ̯lənt] ~ [ˈsaɪ̯ln̩t] / /ˈsaːlənt/

adj

Etymology: From Latin silēns (“silent”), present participle of sileō (“be silent”), from Proto-Indo-European *seyl- (“still, windless, quiet, slow”). Related to Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌰𐍃𐌹𐌻𐌰𐌽 (anasilan, “to cease, grow still, be silent”), Old English sālnes (“silence”).

  1. Free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet.

    “How silent is this town!”

    “What was formerly performed by fleets and armies, by invasions, sieges, and battles, has been of late accomplished by more silent methods.”

  2. Not speaking; indisposed to talk; speechless; mute; taciturn; not loquacious; not talkative.

    “Ulysses, adds he, was the most eloquent and most silent of men.”

    “This new-created world, whereof in hell / Fame is not silent.”

  3. Keeping at rest; inactive; calm; undisturbed.

    “The winds were silent, all the waves asleep, / And heaven was trac'd upon the flattering deep”

  4. Not pronounced; having no sound; quiescent.

    “The e is silent in fable.”

    “Silent letters can make some words difficult to spell.”

  5. Having no effect; not operating; inefficient.

    “Cause […] silent, virtueless, and dead.”

  6. With the sound turned off; usually on silent or in silent mode.

    “My phone was on silent.”

  7. Without audio capability.

    “The Magnavox Odyssey was a silent console.”

  8. Hidden, unseen.

    “a silent voter; a silent partner”

  9. Of an edit or change to a text, not explicitly acknowledged.

    “silent revisions; a silent emendation”

    “[T]he use of both acknowledged and unacknowledged (silent) translations of non-English sources makes it difficult for users to determine if a certain term genuinely appeared in an English-language text.”

  10. Not implying significant modifications which would affect a peptide sequence.
  11. Undiagnosed or undetected because of an absence of symptoms.
  12. Of distilled spirit: having no flavour or odour.

noun

Etymology: From Latin silēns (“silent”), present participle of sileō (“be silent”), from Proto-Indo-European *seyl- (“still, windless, quiet, slow”). Related to Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌰𐍃𐌹𐌻𐌰𐌽 (anasilan, “to cease, grow still, be silent”), Old English sālnes (“silence”).

  1. That which is silent; a time of silence.

    “Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night.”

  2. A silent movie

    “More than 40 films will be shown spanning the past seventy-five years, including early silents and talkies, contemporary productions, foreign and American films, documentaries, underground works and television shows.”