silken
silken Lexical Profile
silken Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Soft, smooth, and lustrous like silk.
"The golden retriever had a beautiful, silken coat that gleamed in the afternoon sun."
Smooth, gentle, and persuasive in sound, tone, or manner.
"The narrator's silken voice made the audiobook a pleasure to listen to."
Made or consisting of silk (now chiefly literary or archaic).
"The royal bedchamber was adorned with silken tapestries and embroidered cushions."
Word Nuance & Usage
Like 'golden' and 'wooden', 'silken' is nowadays used primarily in figurative or literary contexts to describe smoothness or luster (e.g., 'silken hair'), whereas the noun adjunct 'silk' is preferred for literal items made from the fabric (e.g., 'a silk scarf').
• Rhymes for silken
Word Origin & Etymology
From Old English 'silcen' or 'seolcen', derived from 'seoloc' (silk) combined with the material-forming suffix '-en'.