wall of silence
noun
Simple meaning
Strict secretiveness maintained by the members of a group about information which might be contrary to their interests.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wawluhvsyluhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɔləvsaɪləns
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
idiomatic
Strict secretiveness maintained by the members of a group with respect to information which might be contrary to their interests, especially information concerning questionable actions by members of the group.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Strict secretiveness maintained by the members of a group with respect to information which might be contrary to their interests, especially information concerning questionable actions by members of the group.
Used this way, wall of silence 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.
Share your sentence
Ask Vocabaura
Understand the word your way.
What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
Use it yourself
Keep learning “wall of silence” by choosing the kind of practice you need next.
- Practice sentence writingWrite sentences with vocabulary and get instant feedback.
- Practice in contextAnswer short vocabulary questions drawn from real situations.
- Review vocabularyTest your recall and strengthen words over time.
- Practice typingType vocabulary from meanings, examples and other prompts.
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.