Meanings
- literarynot comparableMade of silver; resembling or characteristic of silver; silvery.
I know a pool, where shadows fall From fir-trees, melancholy tall, That dream and quiver round the rim, And in the molten centre swim, Where taper tops do all unite Bemirrored in its silvern light.
1885, Robert Bird, Law Lyrics, page 311 more example
But, leaving novelists alone, on the whole we find in real life that if speech is silvern, silence is essentially golden, and that more harm is done by saying too much than by saying too little; above all, that infinite mischief arises by not letting sleeping dogs lie.
1868 August 29, “Sleeping Dogs”, in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, volume 26, number 670, page 287
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveresembling or reminiscent of silver
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Proto-Germanic*silubrīnaz“made of silver”
- Old Englishseolfren
- Middle Englishsylveren
- Englishsilvern
From Middle English sylveren, selverne, from Old English seolfren, from Proto-Germanic *silubrīnaz (“made of silver”); equivalent to silver + -(e)n. Cognate with Dutch zilveren (“silvern”), German silbern (“silvern”).
More words from Middle English, Old English, Proto-Germanic
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
silvern. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/silvern
“silvern.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/silvern. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “silvern,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/silvern.
Source: silvern on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.