silent
part of speech
adjective (silent, more silent, most silent)
meaning for a pupil
1) Silent means making no sound at all; completely quiet. tree →
2) A silent person is not speaking. tree →
3) A silent letter is written in a word but not said, like the k in «knee». tree →
sense in the lessons
In school, «silent reading» means reading to yourself without talking, and «silent working» means no talking. In English spelling, many words have silent letters: k in knife, w in write, b in lamb, h in hour, t in listen. In everyday life, «a minute's silence» honours people who have died, and phones can be put on silent. In stories, «the forest was silent» creates tension. In science, sound needs air or another material; space is silent.
examples
- Please read silently for ten minutes. tree →
- The library was completely silent. tree →
- The «k» in «knee» is silent. tree →
- Put your phone on silent during the film. tree →
- He stayed silent and didn't answer. tree →
- Space is silent because there is no air. tree →
- Owls fly in silent flight. tree →
- Everyone stood silent for one minute. tree →
- “Johnny’s a silent fellow,” he reminded Hook. tree →
note
Adverb «silently», noun «silence». Silent letters are a common spelling trap: write, knight, thumb, island, castle, Wednesday. «Silent» = no sound; «quiet» = little sound.
In the corpora
- The silent treatment usually makes things worse, and children should not have to carry messages between upset grown-ups.
- Trees cannot walk, shout or run away, but they are not as silent as they look.
- White storks are almost silent and clatter their bills to greet each other, while chicks hiss and mew before they learn to clatter.
- Over lunch Toad tells all his adventures as if they were splendid fun, and the Rat grows more and more grave and silent.
- «The more he talked and boasted, the more grave and silent the Rat became.» (grave = serious)
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «silent» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.