noun
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silk produced by wild silkworms
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a fabric made from this, or from short fibres of silk designed to imitate it
Etymology
Origin of wild silk
An Americanism dating back to 1790–1800
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.
Behind them the river pulsed through the darkness, shimmering like wild silk.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
Still, the wild silk made by the moths of India is not carefully grown.
From The Story of Silk by Price, Hattie Longstreet
M. Randot has estimated the annual crop of wild silk cocoons in Szechwan at 10,180,000 pounds, although in the opinion of Alexander Hosie much of this may come from Kweichow.
From Farmers of Forty Centuries; Or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea, and Japan by King, F. H. (Franklin Hiram)
"In particular," says a report on the resources of German East Africa, "the President of the Silk Association has just directed attention to the wild silk of the anaphe worm."
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 29, 1916 by Seaman, Owen, Sir
The leaves are large oval ones, each about 7 inches in length; they have been sewn together with wild silk carefully knotted, exactly as is the practice of the common Tailor-bird.
From The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 by Hume, Allan Octavian
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.
