silk

Meaning

1. A fine fiber excreted by the silkworm or other arthropod (such as a spider).
2. A fine, soft cloth woven from silk fibers.
3. Anything which resembles silk, such as the filiform styles of the female flower of maize, or the seed covering of bombaxes.
4. The gown worn by a Senior (i.e. Queen's/King's) Counsel.
5. (colloquial) A Queen's Counsel, King's Counsel or Senior Counsel.
6. A pair of long silk sheets suspended in the air on which a performer performs tricks.
7. The garments worn by a jockey displaying the colors of the horse's owner.

silken

silky

of silk

silk-

silk cloth

natural silk

silk cord

silk hat

silk thread

embroidery thread

filamentus

sarsenet

a silk gown

thin silk

cocoon fiber

Frequency

Pronounced as (IPA)

/sɪlk/

From Middle English silk, sylk, selk, selc, from Old English sioloc, seoloc, seolc (“silk”). The immediate source is uncertain; it probably reached English via the Baltic trade routes (cognates in Old Norse silki (> Danish silke, Swedish silke (“silk”)), Russian шёлк (šolk), obsolete Lithuanian zilkaĩ), all ultimately from Late Latin sēricus, from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós), ultimately from an Oriental language (represented now by e.g. Chinese 絲／丝 (sī, “silk”)). Compare Seres. Doublet of seric and serge.

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