silo
Americannoun
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a structure, typically cylindrical, in which fodder or forage is kept.
The dairy farm's two biggest buildings were the barn and the silo full of feed for the cows.
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a pit or underground space for storing grain, green feeds, etc.
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Military. an underground installation constructed of concrete and steel, designed to house a ballistic missile and the equipment for firing it.
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a group, unit, enterprise, etc., that is isolated from others or functions independently, typically viewed as not deriving the benefits of interrelationships or collaboration.
Fundraising department silos happen when different teams don't share their ideas and plans.
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information silo. data silo. Computers. an unintegrated data repository that cannot share its stored data with other systems, subsystems, or applications.
When an organization deploys a stand-alone solution to improve operations, it risks creating a data silo that may present difficulties when trying to scale throughout the enterprise.
verb (used with object)
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to put into or preserve in a silo, as fodder, grain, or missiles.
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to separate or isolate (a group, unit, enterprise, etc.) from others.
We Americans are now more sheltered and siloed in our sources of news than ever before.
noun
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a pit, trench, horizontal container, or tower, often cylindrical in shape, in which silage is made and stored
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a strengthened underground position in which missile systems are sited for protection against attack
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of silo
First recorded in 1825–35; from Spanish: “place for storing grain, hay, etc.,” originally, “subterranean”; further origin uncertain
Explanation
A silo is a cylindrical tower used for bulk storage, like grain silos that stand tall near farms. Another kind of silo is harder to see — military silos are underground. Farming and war are pretty different, but they both involve silos. You may have seen a silo if you've ever visited a farm. A silo is a tall tower with a cylindrical (rounded) shape. The silo holds anything the farmer needs to store in bulk, especially feed for the animals. Other, non-farm silos hold material such as cement or coal. The military type of silo holds something more dangerous: missiles. These silos store the missiles underground until they’re fired.
Vocabulary lists containing silo
Down on the Farm
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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
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Red Kayak
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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:
To create the sequence, Nolan’s team built a sort of silo on the beach, rigging it with minuscule LED lights to mimic sunlight leaking through chinks in the horse’s hull.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
But those timings mean he cannot get the cereal straight to a local silo because they are not open then.
From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026
Salesforce’s customer relationship management data only represent an isolated silo of its customers’ total footprint, Goldberg said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
I really hope they don’t silo her in the música Mexicana categories, because this is a very mature album for her.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2025
Around a bend, we see a large white farmhouse with Greek pillars, a barn, a silo, and a fenced yard where a dozen or so pickup and farm trucks are parked.
From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
But more often, those fighting trafficking live in their own silos, doing their own work, and often failing or refusing to share even scant details with other jurisdictions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
An existing desalination plant with large white silos on Vulcano, one of the archipelago's eight islands, has made it autonomous for drinking water.
From Barron's ● Jul. 13, 2026
The microfame experienced by influencers whose days are spent in algorithmic silos is fragile.
From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2026
High-income tax planning here means coordinating healthcare and tax strategy, not optimizing them in silos.
From MarketWatch ● May 8, 2026
Of course when my father explained, I realized I’d seen silos all over the country; I just hadn’t known what they were called.
From "Homesick" by Jean Fritz
The company is addressing an age-old problem in enterprise technology: the multitude of siloed systems and data sources that don’t communicate with one another in a fluid way.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
“Television was reasonably siloed … ABC took a long time deciding because they could see that there was something about it, but in the end they passed.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 2026
"She was just going to continue to do what she was doing, and take money from people because people were siloed right, they didn't know what was going on."
From BBC ● Dec. 5, 2025
The initial decision by engineer Breton to invest in Palantir came as a result of his job as a technical expert at a manufacturing company, where he often dealt with unorganized and siloed data.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 25, 2025
When the refuse has been siloed for eight months, and 12 per cent. of the animal's weight is used, there will follow a slight daily increase in weight.
From Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 by Various
"One thing we often talk about is not siloing HIV and exceptionalising it," he said.
From BBC ● Jan. 6, 2024
Rather than siloing, say, the Navy’s information from the Army’s, their intelligence will be hooked into one big brain to allow coordination and protect assets.
From Salon ● Dec. 6, 2023
That word, “Silo,” refers both to the enormous subterranean city that shelters 10,000 people and to the practice of information siloing: filtering data through narrow, manipulative networks.
From New York Times ● Jul. 4, 2023
Parents are siloing themselves with like-minded friends, which reinforces their thinking.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 30, 2021
Intentionally seeking out and establishing relationships with friends who eschew romantic siloing is possible and will go a long way toward making your future seem less like an open question.
From Slate ● Sep. 15, 2020
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.
