silent (silent)

and n. [Early mod. E. also sylent; = It. silente, IMG:content-1053.jpg:[graphic][merged small] O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent . Ps. xxii. 2. Hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear. Shak ., J. C., iii. 2. 14. 2. In a restricted use, not given to speaking; using few words; not loquacious. Uly es, he adds, was the most eloquent and the most silent of men. W. Broome . 3. Not speaking about some specified thing; withholding mention or statement; saying nothing; uncommunicative. This new-created world, whereof in hell Fame is not silent . Milton, P. L., iv. 938. It is very extraordinary that antient authors should be so silent in relation to Helio polis. Pococke , Description of the East, II. i. 107. 4. Lacking authority or ability to speak, as about something of personal concern; not having a voice; disqualified for speech: as, a si lent partner in a firm (see partner ); the silent part of creation. - 5. Not uttered or expre ed with the voice; unmarked by utterance or demonstrative speech; unspoken; unsounded: as, silent agony or endurance; silent opposition; a silent letter (see below). IMG:content-1054.png:[blocks in formation] silent Like starry light, Which, sparckling on the silent waves, does see me more bright. Spenser, F. Q., II. xii. 78. If you find yourself approaching to the silent tomb, Sir, Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit. think of me. Silent-alarm system. See fire - alarm telegraph, under fire - alarm.- Silent letter, a letter of a word which is not sounded or pronounced in the enunciation of the word, as the b in doubt, the e in victual, the d in handsome, the second of the two like consonants in ebb, odd, off, etc. The silent letter may be wholly usele , as in the above examples, or it may serve as an accidental or conventional index of the sound given to some adjacent letter: thus, the e in bate, mete, bite, note, mute, etc., is silent, but it indicates that the preceding vowel is long; the c in indict, the g in sign, the l in balm, etc., serve a similar purpose. Silent letters are traditional, representing sounds that once isted in the word, either in English or in the original tongue (as the p and I in psalm, pronounced in Latin psalm us, Greek ψαλμός), though often, as in this case, artificially restored after having been omitted (AS. sealm, ME. salm, sau me ), or have been foisted in to suit some false etymology or erroneous analogy, as the I in could, the g in foreign, the p in ptarmigan, etc. The proportion of silent letters in the present English spelling is about 124 per cent. Silent spirit, distilled spirit which is nearly or quite destitute of flavor and odor. Compare silence, 4.-Silent system, a system of prison discipline which imposes entire silence among the prisoners, even when a embled together.- Silent Week, Holy Week. Also Still Week. - The Silent Sister, an ironical name of Ireland. Syn. 1 and 2. Silent, Taciturn, Dumb, Mute. Silent expre es the fact of not speaking, taciturn the habitual disposition to refrain from speaking. Dumb strictly implies lack of the organs of speech, or defect in them, or lack of the power of speaking, while mute implies some special cause hence deaf - mute is thought by many a better name than deaf-and- dumb person for one who does not speak on account of an idol is dumb, not mute Peunder figurative extension mute, dumb, and silent are often used outside of the lines here ind i cated. In such freer use there is an advance in strength from silent to mute and from mute to dumb: as, silent from abstraction; mute with astonishment; struck dumb with horror. II. n. 1. A silent period. [Rare.] Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night. Shak ., 2 Hen. VI., i. 4. 19. 2. A short-circuit switch attached to an elec tric alarm, which when closed prevents the alarm from .. If the peg is removed, or axis turned,. the short circuit is broken, and the current pa es through the coil. A switch of this kind attached to an alarm is called R. S. Culley , Pract. Teleg., p. 179. a silent.