Definitions for Silence
ˈsaɪ lənsSi·lence

Princeton's WordNet(4.00 / 3 votes)Rate this definition:

1. silence(noun)

   the state of being silent (as when no one is speaking)

   "there was a shocked silence"; "he gestured for silence"

2. silence, quiet(noun)

   the absence of sound

   "he needed silence in order to sleep"; "the street was quiet"

3. muteness, silence(noun)

   a refusal to speak when expected

   "his silence about my contribution was surprising"

4. secrecy, secretiveness, silence(verb)

   the trait of keeping things secret

5. hush, quieten, silence, still, shut up, hush up(verb)

   cause to be quiet or not talk

   "Please silence the children in the church!"

6. silence(verb)

   keep from expression, for example by threats or pressure

   "All dissenters were silenced when the dictator assumed power"

Wiktionary(4.00 / 2 votes)Rate this definition:

1. silence(Noun)

   The lack of any sound.

   When the motor stopped, the silence was almost deafening.

   Etymology: From silence.

2. silence(Noun)

   Form of meditative worship practiced by the Society of Friends (Quakers); meeting for worship.

   During silence a message came to me that there was that of God in every person.

   Etymology: From silence.

3. silence(Noun)

   The action of refraining from speaking.

   "You have the right to silence," said the police officer.

   Etymology: From silence.

4. silence(Verb)

   To make something silent.

   Can you silence the crowd, so we can start the show?

   Etymology: From silence.

5. silence(Verb)

   To suppress criticism etc.

   Etymology: From silence.

6. silence(Verb)

   To block gene expression.

   Etymology: From silence.

7. silence(Interjection)

   be quiet

   Etymology: From silence.

Webster Dictionary(3.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Silence(noun)

   the state of being silent; entire absence of sound or noise; absolute stillness

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

2. Silence(noun)

   forbearance from, or absence of, speech; taciturnity; muteness

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

3. Silence(noun)

   secrecy; as, these things were transacted in silence

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

4. Silence(noun)

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

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

5. Silence(noun)

   absence of mention; oblivion

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

6. Silence

   be silent; -- used elliptically for let there be silence, or keep silence

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

7. Silence(verb)

   to compel to silence; to cause to be still; to still; to hush

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

8. Silence(verb)

   to put to rest; to quiet

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

9. Silence(verb)

   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

   Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

10. Silence(verb)

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

    Etymology: [F., fr. L. silentium. See Silent.]

Freebase(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Silence

   Silence is the lack of audible sound or presence of sounds of very low intensity. By analogy, the word silence can also refer to any absence of communication, including in media other than speech. Silence is also used as total communication, in reference to non verbal communication and spiritual connection. Silence also refers to no sounds uttered by anybody in a room or area. Silence is an important factor in many cultural spectacles, as in rituals. In discourse analysis, speakers use brief absences of speech to mark the boundaries of prosodic units. Silence in speech can be hesitation, stutters, self-correction—or deliberate slowing of speech to clarify or aid processing of ideas. These are short silences. Longer pauses in language occur in interactive roles, reactive tokens, or turn-taking. According to cultural norms, silence can be positive or negative. For example, in a Christian Methodist faith organization silence and reflection during the sermons might be appreciated by the congregation, while in a Southern Baptist church, silence might mean disagreement with what is being said, or perhaps disconnectedness from the congregated community.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Silence

   sī′lens, n. state of being silent: absence of sound or speech: muteness: cessation of agitation: calmness: oblivion.—v.t. to cause to be silent: to put to rest: to stop.—interj. be silent!—adj. Sī′lent, free from noise: not speaking: habitually taciturn: still: not pronounced: of distilled spirit, without flavour or odour.—n. Silen′tiary, one who keeps order in an assembly.—adv. Sī′lently.—n. Sī′lentness=Silence. [L. silēre, to be silent.]

The Roycroft Dictionary(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. silence

   A trick of the human gullet that conceals weakness or emptiness.

Military Dictionary and Gazetteer(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. silence

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

Suggested Resources(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. silence

   Song lyrics by silence -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by silence on the Lyrics.com website.

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'Silence' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #1783

2. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'Silence' in Nouns Frequency: #812

Anagrams for Silence »

1. license, selenic

2. Selenic

How to pronounce Silence?

1. 

   Alex

   US English

   

   Daniel

   British

   

   Karen

   Australian

   

   Veena

   Indian

How to say Silence in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of Silence in Chaldean Numerology is: 7

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of Silence in Pythagorean Numerology is: 4

Examples of Silence in a Sentence

1. Musin Almat Zhumabekovich:

   1. Eternal insomnia for days on end, the brain does not rest at all. You never sleep, because you are at work all day and then you dream that you are at work, wake up in the morning, go to work. Or do you dream that you wander somewhere, in nature, in the city, run away or fight with someone, and in the morning you complain that you are not getting enough sleep. 2. All memory in the cartridge. Life as a compact cassette, the contents of the reality of the subconscious - this is the content of the same cassette tape, all the memory deja vu on the reels of the cassette representing the past and future. 3. Artifacts of experience in the memory of past lives, live with us forever in the abyss of oblivion, and some like buoys emerge and warn of the depth of unconsciousness. 4. The chain of optimism is the weak link of naivety in human evolution. Optimism from a smile for a stranglehold of reality leading to the comic surrealism of the dreaming paradoxes of the human world. 5. Love is a night lamp from gloomy thoughts of the past. 6. Genius is telepathy with eternity. 7. Expressive horror, clownish smile of shock of truth, there are so many horrors and mental sufferings in it. An evil laugh of inevitability sounds. You are in the hands of a butcher of reality. All people from different dimensions of illusions do not hide from the truth, go play. 8. You hear the shocking laugh of brutal awareness. You are in the clown horror, the smile of the reality in the form of a clown becomes gigantic and it eats you moving to the zone of eternal laughter of indifference, where you are among faceless people in chains, on them plastic masks on the floor of the face with terrible smiles of disappointment a mask of nervous laughter emanates from them souls are cremated by despair; they don’t respond to you because they are undead unscrupulous. 9. Will turns life into a lucid dream. 10. Life is a two-room apartment, where one room is a city, the other is a dream. 11. The main thing in this world is family and awareness, the rest is decor. 12. Materialism is a cell of the mind that suppresses the will of the mind. 13. Enlarged or altered parts of the body are prostheses of pride, a disabled ego, you can see how the brain looks, but not the soul, a mutated mind exhausted by knowledge. 14. For a single person, the heart will become a friend, the body will be the soul, and the mind will become a horse. 15. Pride will take away the truth from the world without which there will be no future only spiritual poverty. 16. A frightening schizoid, bloody smile of rage burns with fire several hundred meters. Tearing the face and psyche and the skull itself, a delightful light smile of insensibility. 17. Time will show a complete psychological portrait of mankind to light and darkness. 18. Faith is stronger than all torture; there is nothing more powerful in the whole universe than faith that feeds will. 19. Truth - these are very strongly tightened strings, you need to play them very carefully and then you will hear an unforgettable melody of truth that may turn out to be the last in your life. 20. Reality is decomposing and all the ridiculous horrors of reality are visible, since you are in the lush chronosphere, where the quantum genetic transformations of the instincts of despair are in, in the projection of an alternative reality of the ego of power in which everything is programmed for decomposition. 21. An alternative is all that you have left. 22. Around you are bodypainting instincts of despair, a reflection of naked and at the same time false inner sensations and complexes. 23. Laughter and a frozen smile with tears is a state of doom that says that there is no more hope. Such laughter is heard in society, it is increasingly painful to look at the schizoid smiles of selfishness, under large bandanas in the form of eerie toothy smiles. You laugh until your heart stops. 24. You are in the unconscious, subconsciously instinctive, unpredictable chaos of the violent chronosphere, where the air is discharged and saturated with ignorance. You feel in yourself a silent smile of rage, the laugh of an ever-smiling death, in the intense silence of the unpredictable instincts of despair. You feel insult - this is rebirth, a laughing monster of disappointment, a smiling gloom, a crying smile, painted in the bright colors of depression, the laughter of this creature sounds in you for days, amplified by the laughter of people who laugh at you, you hear them ugly laugh, it gets louder and louder, you're scared, you cry and finally open your eyes, and realize that you are among strangers. Author: Musin Almat Zhumabekovich

2. Saadi Shirazi:

   Hast thou not perfect excellence, ?tis best To keep thy tongue in silence, for ?tis this Which shames a man; as lightness does attest The nut is empty, nor of value is.

3. Robert Louis Stephenson:

   The cruelest lies are often told in silence.

4. Justin Rose:

   I was kind of having a little fun with it, thanks, tipping the cap to the silence, but to be fair, Dustin Johnson's caddie, his brother, he kind of gave me a little round of applause there. So the guys were having a bit of fun with the unique environment that we were dealing with.

5. Ronan Farrow:

   I'm still talking to a large number of these women, they continue to be committed to exposing a culture of silence around this.

Images & Illustrations of Silence

Popularity rank by frequency of use