Word.ws English Dictionary

silent

Syllables: sil·ent/ˈsaɪ̯lənt/

silent adjective: free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet.

Adjective

silent (comparative silenter or more silent, superlative silentest or most silent)

  1. Free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet.
    • How silent is this town!c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    • What was formerly performed by fleets and armies, by invasions, sieges, and battles, has been of late accomplished by more silent methods.1825, Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, The Works of Samuel Johnson, Talboys and Wheeler, page 52
    Synonyms:
    quiet
  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.1725–1726, Homer, “(please specify the book or chapter of the Odyssey)”, in [William Broome, Elijah Fenton, Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC
    • This new-created world, whereof in hell / Fame is not silent.1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    Synonyms:
    speechless, dumb
  3. Keeping at rest; inactive; calm; undisturbed.
    • The winds were silent, all the waves asleep, / And heaven was trac'd upon the flattering deepa. 1718, Thomas Parnell, Hesiod; or, the Rise of Woman
    Synonyms:
    dormant
  4. (pronunciation) Not pronounced; having no sound; quiescent.
    • The e is silent in fable.
    • Silent letters can make some words difficult to spell.
    Synonyms:
    mute, quiescent, servile
  5. Having no effect; not operating; inefficient.
    • Cause […] silent, virtueless, and dead.1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5)
  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
    Synonyms:
    concealed
  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.2018, James Lambert, “Setting the Record Straight: An In-depth Examination of Hobson-Jobson”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 31, number 4, →DOI, page 496
  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 (1)

silent (plural silents)

  1. (uncountable) That which is silent; a time of silence.
    • Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  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.1978 April 22, “The Celluloid Closet”, in Gay Community News, page 2

Noun (2) capitalized: SILENT

SILENT (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of syndrome of irreversible lithium-effectuated neurotoxicity.

Noun (3) capitalized: Silent

Silent (plural Silents)

  1. (in plural) A member of the Silent Generation.
    • From Ali (technically a Silent who was born in 1942), to Tommie Smith's medal-stand protest, to Joe Namath's Super Bowl prediction to the hair-raising Oakland A's and the raucous Bronx Zoo Yankees of the 1970s, to the outbursts of Connors and McEnroe on the tennis court, to King's tireless push for...2011 February 17, Richard Rothschild, “Ranking generations of athletes”, in Sports Illustrated, New York, N.Y.: Arena Group Holdings, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 21 May 2022
    • In a somewhat bizarre set of survey data from 2015, 33 percent of Millennials identified as Gen X, and 8 percent said that they were Boomers. Fifteen percent of Gen Xers said that they identified as Boomers, while a baffled 2 percent of Boomers and 4 percent of Silents thought of themselves as...2021 October 14, Joe Pinsker, “'Gen Z' Only Exists in Your Head”, in Jeffrey Goldberg, editor, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on...

silent meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Odia

silent in Hindi

free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet
चुप cup, ख़ामोश xāmoś
not speaking; indisposed to talk; speechless; mute; taciturn
चुप cup

silent in Urdu

خاموش

silent in Bengali

free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet
খামোশ khamōś

silent in Odia

ନୀରବ
More languagesFewer languages
silent in Tagalog
tahimik
silent in Arabic
صَامِت ṣāmit, سَاكِت sākit
silent in Persian
خاموش xâmuš, بیصدا bi-sedâ, آرام ârâm, لال lâl
silent in Thai
เงียบ ngîiap, นิ่ง nîng, สงัด sà-ngàt
silent in Vietnamese
yên lặng, lặng lẽ, câm lặng
silent in Myanmar
တိတ် tit

Examples of silent in a sentence

  • As I tiptoed past the sleeping dog, my heart was pounding but I remained silent.
  • Well, well, well, it seems the silent one does have a voice, after all.
  • The students fell momentarily silent while he finished writing on the board. Then, "Ribbit!"

All 40 example sentences with silent

Synonyms of silent

5 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of silent

Forms of silent

Adjective
comparativesilenter
comparativemore silent
superlativesilentest
superlativemost silent
alternative hypercorrect (obsolete)scilent
Noun
pluralsilents
pluralSilents

Origin of silent

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”).

Words formed from silent

Phrases with silent

27 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with silent

Questions about silent

What does silent mean?
Silent means free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet.
What is silent in Hindi?
Silent in Hindi is चुप (cup), ख़ामोश (xāmoś). See Silent meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is silent?
Silent can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce silent?
Silent is pronounced /ˈsaɪ̯lənt/.

Words near silent in the dictionary

  1. sileneoside
  2. silenes
  3. sileni
  4. silenic
  5. silenoside
  6. silent
  7. silent agitator
  8. silent agitators
  9. silent alarm
  10. silent alarms
  11. silent as a grave

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: silent (page history and authors); SILENT (page history and authors); Silent (page history and authors); silent (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); silent (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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-silent.ogg.

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