Word.ws English Dictionary

silken

Syllables: silk·en/ˈsɪlkən/

silken adjective: made of silk.

Adjective

silken (not comparable)

  1. Made of silk.
    • a silken veil
    Synonyms:
    silk, seric
  2. Having a smooth, soft, or light texture.
    • [L]ove is not to be bought, in any ſenſe of the vvords, its ſilken vvings are inſtantly ſhrivelled up vvhen any thing beſide a return in kind is ſought.1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, “Of the Pernicious Effects which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society”, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on...
    • […] in spite of the buzz in the next room, Edith had rolled herself up into a soft ball of muslin and ribbon, and silken curls, and gone off into a peaceful little after-dinner nap.1854 September – 1855 January, [Elizabeth Gaskell], chapter I, in North and South. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1855, →OCLC
  3. Suave.
    • […] an admired silken-mannered gentleman in society, a tolerable polecat at home […]1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC
  4. (figuratively) Having a smooth, soft, or flowing utterance; attractive or (typically derogatory) convincing through pleasing expression.
    • Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, / Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, / Figures pedantical; these summer-flies / Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Come then youth, Beauty, and Blood, all ye soft powers, / Whose silken flatteryes swell a few fond houres.1646, Richard Crashaw, “Vpon Mr. Staninough’s Death”, in Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems, with Other Delights of the Muses, London: Humphrey Moseley, page 40
  5. Dressed in silk.
    • [S]hall a beardless boy, / A cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields […]?c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet / Every fine silken painted foole we meet, / He then to him with amorous smiles allures,c. 1593–1597, J[ohn] Donne, “Satyre I”, in Poems, […] with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot, […], published 1633, →OCLC, page 327

Verb

silken (third-person singular simple present silkens, present participle silkening, simple past and past participle silkened)

  1. (transitive) To render silken or silklike.
    • silkening body lotion
    • Or, if your sheep are of Silurian breed,
      Nightly to house them dry on fern or straw,
      Silk’ning their fleeces.1757, John Dyer, The Fleece, London: R. & J. Dodsley, Book I, lines 492-494, p. 30

silken meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

silken in Tamil

பட்டினாலான

silken in Urdu

ریشمی

silken in Bengali

silken, of silk
রেশমি reśmi

Examples of silken in a sentence

  • He heard the silken rustle of a dressing-gown being drawn on.1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus, Random House, published 2010, page 37:
  • Last Saturday was three Weeks, at Two, in the Afternoon, I sent out my Servant, to watch a Couple of these Silken Strollers, and keep, if possible, within Ken of them.1724, Aaron Hill, The Plain Dealer, London: S. Richardson & A. Wilde, 1730, Volume 2, No. 81, 28 December, 1724, p. 197
  • […] these lights silkened her black skin:1987, Derek Walcott, “The Light of the World”, in The Arkansas Testament, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 48:

All 19 example sentences with silken

Synonyms of silken

Forms of silken

third-person singular presentsilkens
present participlesilkening
past participlesilkened
pastsilkened

Origin of silken

From Middle English silken, selken, seolkene, from Old English seolcen, from seolc (“silk”) + -en, from an unattested early Proto-West Germanic borrowing from Latin sēricum, from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós, “silken”), from σήρ (sḗr, “silkworm”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”). Equivalent to silk + -en (“made of”). Cognate with Scots selkin, silkin (“silken”), Icelandic silki (“silken”).

Words formed from silken

Phrases with silken

Questions about silken

What does silken mean?
Silken means made of silk.
What is silken in Tamil?
Silken in Tamil is பட்டினாலான. See Silken meaning in Tamil.
How do you use silken in a sentence?
He heard the silken rustle of a dressing-gown being drawn on.
What part of speech is silken?
Silken can be an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce silken?
Silken is pronounced /ˈsɪlkən/.

Words near silken in the dictionary

  1. silk-stocking milk tea
  2. silkaline
  3. silkalines
  4. silke
  5. silked
  6. silken
  7. silken tofu
  8. silken tofus
  9. Silken Windhound
  10. silkened
  11. silkening

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: silken (page history and authors); silken (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); silken (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); রেশমি (Bengali) (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-silken.ogg.

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