Meaning
1 sensesTo render silken or silklike.
silkening body lotion
Examples
4 sentencesModeration is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.
He laughed, and his laughter was like the purr of a sword sliding from a silken sheath.
deEr lachte, und sein Gelächter glich dem Schnurren eines Schwertes, das aus einer seidenen Scheide gleitet. — Yorwba · CC BY 2.0 FR
This silken vest here, green like the sea, reminds us that we spent three days under the ocean.
Her dainty feet were sandal-clad, while her head remained bare of covering other than her silken tresses.
Origin
From Middle English silken, selken, seolkene, from Old English seolcen, from seolc (“silk”From Middle English silken, selken, seolkene, from Old English seolcen, from seolc (“silk”) + -en, from an unattested early Proto-West Germanic borrowing from Latin sēricum, from Ancient Greek σηρικός (sērikós, “silken”), from σήρ (sḗr, “silkworm”) + -ικός (-ikós, “-ic”). Equivalent to silk + -en (“made of”). Cognate with Scots selkin, silkin (“silken”), Icelandic silki (“silken”).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
silkens, silkening, silkened, silkenedLessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.