From Middle English silver, selver, sulver, from Old English seolfor, from Proto-West Germanic *silubr, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą, of uncertain origin.

Cognate with Scots siller, Saterland Frisian Säälwer, Western Frisian sulver, Dutch zilver, nds-de Silver, Sülver ("silver"), German Silber, Swedish silver, Icelandic silfur. The Germanic word has parallels in Baltic and Slavic (Church Slavic сьрєбро, Lithuanian sidabras), Celtic (Celtiberian silaPur-), and outside Indo-European, in Basque zilar and ber-pro *a-ẓrəf, but the ultimate origin of the word is unknown.

Adjective sense of twenty-fifth wedding anniversary generalized from silver wedding, from German Silberhochzeit, silberne Hochzeit.

• (RP) IPA: /ˈsɪl.və/
• (America) enPR: sĭl'vər IPA: /ˈsɪl.vɚ/

silver

1. (uncountable) A lustrous, white, metallic element, atomic number 47, atomic weight 107.87, symbol Ag.
2. (collectively) Coins made from silver or any similar white metal.
   • 1990, David F. Friedman, Don DeNevi, A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-film King, page 136:

     […] maybe two or three twenties, a dozen tens, and twenty or thirty fins. The rest is all aces and silver.

3. (collectively) Cutlery and other eating utensils, whether silver or made from some other white metal.
4. (collectively) Any items made from silver or any other white metal.
5. (uncountable) A shiny gray color.

    

6. (countable) a silver medal
7. Anything resembling silver; something shiny and white.
   • 1909 April 10, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “[The Time Machine and Other Stories]. The Beautiful Suit.”, in The Short Stories of H. G. Wells, London: Ernest Benn Limited […], published September 1927, →OCLC ↗, pages 162–163 ↗:

     And next morning they found him dead, with his neck broken, in the bottom of the stone pit, with his beautiful clothes a little bloody, and foul and stained with the duckweed from the pond. But his face was a face of such happiness that, had you seen it, you would have understood indeed how that he had died happy, never knowing that cool and streaming silver for the duckweed in the pond.

• (metallic element) argyr-
• (white-metal coins) argyr-
• (cutlery and other eating utensils) silverware
• E174 (when used as a food colouring)

see silver/translations

silver

1. Made from silver.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC ↗:

     He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.

2. Made from another white metal.
3. Having a color like silver: a shiny gray.
4. Denoting the twenty-fifth anniversary, especially of a wedding.
   • 1994, “Mate matching” in Accent on Living, v 38, n 4 (Spring), p 52:

     Mostly, these have been relationships of 10 or less years. However, one respondent has celebrated her silver wedding anniversary.

5. (of commercial services) Premium, but inferior to gold.
6. Having the clear, musical tone of silver; soft and clear in sound.

   a silver-voiced young girl

• (made from silver) silvern (archaic)
• (having a color like silver) silvery

see silver/translations

silver (silvers, present participle silvering; simple past and past participle silvered)

1. To acquire a silvery colour.
   • 1880 November 11, Lew[is] Wallace, chapter IV, in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗, book sixth, page 416 ↗:

     Presently all the eastern sky began to silver and shine, and objects before invisible in the west—chiefly the tall towers on Mount Zion—emerged as from a shadowy depth, [...]

   • 1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, “Silverside”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC ↗, page 281 ↗:

     But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat's-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon.

2. To cover with silver, or with a silvery metal.

   to silver a pin;  to silver a glass mirror plate with an amalgam of tin and mercury

3. To polish like silver; to impart a brightness to, like that of silver.
   • 1725, Homer, “Book X”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume III, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC ↗, page 17 ↗, lines 107–108:

     For here retir'd the ſinking billows ſleep, / And ſmiling calmneſs ſilver'd o'er the deep.

4. To make hoary, or white, like silver.
   • 1727, [John] Gay, “Introduction to the Fables. The Shepherd and the Philosopher. ↗”, in Fables, 2nd edition, volume I, London: […] J[acob] Tonson and J. Watts, published 1728, →OCLC ↗:

     Remote from cities liv'd a Swain, / Unvex'd with all the cares of gain, / His head was ſilver'd o'er with age, / And long experience made him ſage; [...]

As a surname, anglicised from the German - Jewish ornamental surname Silber.

1. Surname for a silversmith or a rich man, or for someone having silvery gray hair or living by a silvery brook.
2. Surname.
3. A unisex given name from the metal, or transferred from the surname.