Word.ws English Dictionary

silenced

silenced is the simple past and past participle of silence.

Adjective

silenced (comparative more silenced, superlative most silenced)

  1. made silent
  2. fitted with a silencer

Meaning of silence

Verb

silence (third-person singular simple present silences, present participle silencing, simple past and past participle silenced)

  1. (transitive) To make (someone or something) silent.
    • Can you silence the crowd, so we can start the show?
    Synonyms:
    mute
  2. (transitive) To repress the expression of something.
    • Women, as well as children, have their thoughts or emotions routinely silenced.
  3. (transitive) To suppress criticism, etc.
    • Silence the critics.
  4. (molecular biology) To block gene expression.
  5. (euphemistic) To murder.
    • They, and others through the years, believed Ruby must have acted on his own since there was no logic to the supposition that anyone could trust an uncontrollable, unreliable loudmouth like Ruby to silence Oswald.2013, Mark Shaw, The Poison Patriarch: How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK, →ISBN, page 150

See all 10 meanings of silence

Forms of silenced

comparativemore silenced
superlativemost silenced

Words formed from silenced

Questions about silenced

What does silenced mean?
Silenced means made silent.
What is silenced the simple past and past participle of?
Silenced is the simple past and past participle of silence.
What part of speech is silenced?
Silenced is an adjective.

Words near silenced in the dictionary

  1. silence is consent
  2. silence is golden
  3. silence is oppression
  4. silence is violence
  5. silenceable
  6. silenced
  7. silencer
  8. silencers
  9. silences
  10. silencing
  11. silencings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: silenced (page history and authors); silence (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-silenced.ogg.

Cite this entry: “silenced.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/silenced. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.