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silk

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A fine fiber excreted by the silkworm or other arthropod.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

silk
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsɪlk

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. chiefly uncountable

    A fine fiber excreted by the silkworm or other arthropod (such as a spider).

  2. horse racingusually in the plural

    The garments worn by a jockey displaying the colors of the horse's owner.

  3. A fine, soft cloth woven from silk fibers.

  4. The gown worn by a Senior (i.e. Queen's/King's) Counsel.

  5. Anything which resembles silk, such as the filiform styles of the female flower of maize, or the seed covering of bombaxes.

  6. Animal fibers produced by silkworms and other larvae that spin cocoons and by most spiders

verb

  1. transitive

    To remove the silk from (corn).

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A fine fiber excreted by the silkworm or other arthropod (such as a spider).

Used this way, silk 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.

More ways to use silk

  • “The elegant dress was made of soft, flowing silk fabric.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Garments

black silkwhite silkblue silkred silk

Other combinations

raw silksilk stockingssilk roadsilk hat

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • silksnounPlural form

    The brightly colored garments of a jockey.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • silk hatnounCompound term

    A man's hat with a tall crown.

  • silk oaknounCompound term

    Any of several Australian timber trees having usually fernlike foliage and mottled wood used in cabinetry and veneering.

  • silk roadnounCompound term

    An ancient trade route between China and the Mediterranean (4,000 miles).

  • silk screen printnounCompound term

    A print made using a stencil process in which an image or design is superimposed on a very fine mesh screen and printing ink is squeegeed onto the printing surface through the area of the…

  • silk stockingnounCompound term

    Women's stockings made from a sheer material (nylon or rayon or silk).

  • silk treenounCompound term

    Attractive domed or flat-topped Asiatic tree having bipinnate leaves and flowers with long silky stamens.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

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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.