silicon valley
noun
Simple meaning
The tech industry.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
siluhkuhnvaleeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsɪləkənˈvæli
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
metonymic
The tech industry, especially the American tech industry specifically.
informal
Originally, the region of the San Francisco Bay Area in which there were a high number of industries producing silicon chips; later extended to mean the entire concentration of high-tech businesses in this area.
countable
A tech industry cluster in another country, developed as a competitor to the original Silicon Valley.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: (metonymic) The tech industry, especially the American tech industry specifically.
Used this way, silicon valley is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.