SILENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Silence

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/sˈaɪləns/ Listen

noun

Silence n.

1.

The state of being silent; entire absence of sound or noise; absolute stillness. "I saw and heared; for such a numerous host Fled not in silence through the frighted deep."

2.

Forbearance from, or absence of, speech; taciturnity; muteness.

3.

Secrecy; as, these things were transacted in silence. "The administration itself keeps a profound silence."

4.

The cessation of rage, agitation, or tumilt; calmness; quiest; as, the elements were reduced to silence.

5.

Absence of mention; oblivion. "And what most merits fame, in silence hid."

verb

Silence v. t. (past & past part. silenced; pres. part. silencing)

1.

To compel to silence; to cause to be still; to still; to hush. "Silence that dreadful bell; it frights the isle."

2.

To put to rest; to quiet. "This would silence all further opposition." "These would have silenced their scruples."

3.

To restrain from the exercise of any function, privilege of instruction, or the like, especially from the act of preaching; as, to silence a minister of the gospel. "The Rev. Thomas Hooker of Chelmsford, in Essex, was silenced for nonconformity."

4.

To cause to cease firing, as by a vigorous cannonade; as, to silence the batteries of an enemy.

interjection

Silence interj. Be silent; used elliptically for let there be silence, or keep silence.

See images of 'Silence'

Etymology of 'Silence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Silence" Quotes from Famous Books

... Mrs. Ochiltree exclaimed explosively, after a considerable silence, "has been building a new house, in place of the old family mansion burned ...

— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... accomplished mostly in silence. Each man was busy with his own thoughts. As for the little native, he seemed quite without fear as long as he was with the powerful "spirits ...

— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... politics. Not that it was an entirely unreserved expression of his soul, for he wrote with a consciousness that posterity would read the record, and its pages are a compound of apparently spontaneous revelation of his inmost thought and of silence upon subjects of which we would gladly know more. He had the Puritan's restraint, self-scrutiny, and self-condemnation. "I am," he writes, "a man of reserved, cold, austere, and forbidding manners." Nor can this estimate be pronounced unjust. He was a lonely man, communing with his soul in ...

— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... to and fro in silence. There was a new light in his eyes, and his cheeks were flushed, and when he spoke there was a tremor in his voice that showed how deeply this news of his long lost ...

— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... you are for a young man; why Dr. Henry often went and looked on, and his daughter danced, and people liked him all the better for it. You will be immensely unpopular if you pursue that course. Don't you think," she continued, encouraged by his silence, "that it savours a little of bigotry and egotism to set one's self up to condemn an amusement that many other Christians approve? What is your ground of objection? One would suppose that you had received a direct revelation ...

— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston

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