silken

C2+ Topic:Describing Qualities

US /ˈsɪlkən/ UK /ˈsɪlkən/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

adj
made of or resembling silk; soft, smooth, and lustrous

Her silken hair gleamed in the candlelight.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 adj · made of or resembling silk;... silky smooth soft lustrous glossy sleek

Opposites

coarse rough

Word family

Related forms silk silky silklike

Etymology

From Old English seolcen ('made of silk'), from seolc ('silk'), ultimately from Latin sericum, from Greek serikos ('of the Seres', a people associated with silk).

seolcen Old English seolc Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Describing Qualities Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# silken

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** adj
**IPA (US):** /ˈsɪlkən/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈsɪlkən/

## Meanings
1. made of or resembling silk; soft, smooth, and lustrous

## Examples
- Her silken hair gleamed in the candlelight.

## Synonyms
- silky
- smooth
- soft
- lustrous
- glossy
- sleek

## Antonyms
- coarse
- rough

## Related Forms
- silk
- silky
- silklike

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: seolcen
- Root: seolc

## Etymology
From Old English seolcen ('made of silk'), from seolc ('silk'), ultimately from Latin sericum, from Greek serikos ('of the Seres', a people associated with silk).

## AI Etymology
Silken comes from Old English seolcen ('made of silk'), from seolc ('silk'), ultimately from Latin sericum, from Greek serikos ('of the Seres', a people associated with silk). The historical chain includes Old English seolcen and Old English seolc. The quoted older senses, "made of silk", "silk", and "of the Seres", supply the semantic anchors for silken. The formation is best read as borrowed: the word silken carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a adj, "made of or resembling silk; soft, smooth, and lustrous". Related English forms include silk, silky, and silklike. The result is a adj whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

## Topics
- Describing Qualities
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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