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say it: SAHY-luhns
silence is a noun and verb meaning "the state of being silent (as when no one is speaking)". It carries 6 recorded senses.
the state of being silent (as when no one is speaking)
“there was a shocked silence”
“he gestured for silence”
the absence of sound
“he needed silence in order to sleep”
“the street was quiet”
a refusal to speak when expected
“his silence about my contribution was surprising”
the trait of keeping things secret
keep from expression, for example by threats or pressure
“All dissenters were silenced when the dictator assumed power”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for silence come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.