silk – English noun declension

English noun forms of silk

Noun: silk
Singularsilk
Pluralsilks

Sample Sentences

  • We harvested a load of silk from the silkworm farm.
  • This is sewn from silk.
  • I'll buy a couple yards of silk.
  • It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park side. [1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “His Own People”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 6:]
  • She's a master with the silks.
  • He's wearing his silk.
  • Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety. She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet. [1963, Margery Allingham, “Dangerous Lady”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 36:]

Etymology

From Middle English silk, sylk, selk, selc, from Old English sioloc, seoloc, seolc (“silk”). The immediate source is uncertain; it probably reached English via the Baltic trade routes (cognates in Old Norse silki (> Danish silke, Swedish silke (“silk”)), Russian шёлк (šolk), obsolete Lithuanian zilkai̇̃), all ultimately from Late Latin sēricus, from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós), ultimately from an Oriental language (represented now by e.g. Chinese 絲 /丝 (sī, “silk”)). Displaced Old English sīde (“silk”). Compare Seres. Doublet of seric and serge. See: Middle English Nouns 'silk', Old English Nouns 'sioloc', Old Norse Nouns 'silki', Danish Nouns 'silke', Swedish Nouns 'silke', Russian Nouns 'шёлк', Old English Nouns 'sīde'.

Verbs referencing "silk"

Finnish Nouns silkki.