silence
Americannoun
-
silences
plural
-
absence of any sound or noise; stillness.
-
the state or fact of being silent; muteness.
-
absence or omission of mention, comment, or expressed concern.
the conspicuous silence of our newspapers on local graft.
-
the state of being forgotten; oblivion.
in the news again after years of silence.
-
concealment; secrecy.
verb (used with object)
-
silences,
present (3rd person singular)
-
silenced,
past participle, past
-
silencing
present participle
interjection
noun
-
the state or quality of being silent
-
the absence of sound or noise; stillness
-
refusal or failure to speak, communicate, etc, when expected
his silence on the subject of their promotion was alarming
-
a period of time without noise
-
oblivion or obscurity
verb
-
to bring to silence
-
to put a stop to; extinguish
to silence all complaint
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
silencesimple
-
silencessimple
-
have silencedperfect
-
has silencedperfect
-
am silencingprogressive
-
are silencingprogressive
-
is silencingprogressive
-
have been silencingperfect progressive
-
has been silencingperfect progressive
Past
-
silencedsimple
-
had silencedperfect
-
was silencingprogressive
-
were silencingprogressive
-
had been silencingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of silence
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English (noun), from Old French, from Latin silentium, derivative of silēre “to be quiet”; cf. silent
Explanation
Silence is quietness, or a lack of sound. When you silence a noisy movie-goer, you shush her. When there's silence, nothing is heard. Silence is empty, the opposite of a noisy racket. A library is one place where there's supposed to be silence so people can concentrate. To silence someone is to hush him up or tell him to be quiet. Silence also has a more disturbing meaning: if someone threatens you to keep you from saying something, she's trying to silence you. Censorship silences free speech.
Vocabulary lists containing silence
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
There's a ripple of laughter during We Can't Be Friends, meanwhile, when a tiny cluster of the audience screams over the "silence challenge", external that's become a meme during the tour's American leg.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
The national anthem was then played, followed by around 16 minutes of silence before the regular programme resumed.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
No livestream could have delivered that shiver, or the silence of hundreds of strangers falling still, then gasping, in the same instant.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
But Grande does perpetuate a silence, complacency, and enabling by painting genuine concern as gossipy chatter.
From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2026
So we all ate in silence, not a word being spoken between us—until, that is, Mutti left the kitchen, telling us she was going to check on Marlene out in the barn.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
The company recently began clinical trials of a treatment that silences the genetic instructions for the Alzheimer’s tau protein.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
It suggests that no other irreversible power to immunize lurks in the Constitution’s silences.
From Slate ● May 26, 2026
He has also been met with blank stares and awkward silences, and once got turned down by a high-school band.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 3, 2026
Jonsson’s silences always seem to say so much and in “Wasteman” he capitalizes on his reserved demeanor and smaller frame to create a character who is much less frightening than those around him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2026
They were in one of those long breaks in the sermon that the priest, a connoisseur of unbearable silences, used with frequency and to great effect.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
The researchers selectively silenced neurons associated with doublesex.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026
Several rescuers run to the road and signal for engines to be shut off, cranes to stop and drills to be silenced.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
"But in Iran, they are more easily silenced."
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
What sets Houdon’s Franklin apart from the other two is that in those depictions the polymath seems silenced and solitary, compared with Houdon’s convivial treatment.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
But Selma’s black community would not be silenced.
From "Because They Marched" by Russell Freedman
“In the end that sacred project actually tends to produce sectarian narrowness, exclusion, uniformity, silencing, self-censorship, lack of debate, the negative sanctioning of nonconformists, and the debilitation of rigorous thought.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
On this night, the mercenaries prevailed, in a pummeling so relentless and a silencing so rapid that a three-peat appeared all but inevitable: Dodgers 14, Blue Jays 2.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2026
By systematically silencing genes, the scientists observed which ones had the greatest impact on slowing or stopping cancer cell growth.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 7, 2026
Now, while Haaland's impressive haul of 29 goals for the campaign still leads the way, Semenyo - and others - are silencing those who feared City were too reliant on the Norwegian's goals.
From BBC ● Feb. 28, 2026
I bade Horatio memorize every detail of my plan, silencing his doubts and urging his faith instead.
From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
