silk

silk
\ \ [OE] Like the substance itself, the word silk originated in the Far East, possibly in Chinese sī ‘silk’. Its immediate ancestor is most closely represented by Manchurian sirghe and Mongolian sirkek. Silk-traders brought their term west, and the Greeks used it to coin a name for them: Seres, the ‘silk people’. That is the source of Latin sēricum and Irish sīric ‘silk’, and also of English serge. But there must have been another oriental form, with an l rather than an r, which made its more northerly way via the Balto-Slavic languages (leaving Russian shelk and Lithuanian shilkai ‘silk’) to Germanic, where it has given Swedish and Danish silke and English silk.
\ \ Cf.⇒ SERGE

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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  • Silk — Silk, n. [OE. silk, selk, AS. seolc, seoloc; akin to Icel. silki, SW. & Dan. silke; prob. through Slavic from an Oriental source; cf. Lith. szilkai, Russ. shelk , and also L. sericum Seric stuff, silk. Cf. {Sericeous}. {Serge} a woolen stuff.] 1 …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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  • SILK — (Heb. מֶשִׁי, meshi). Silk is mentioned once in the Bible by Ezekiel (16:10, 13) in his description of the splendid garments of the Israelite woman. The commentators identify this meshi with silk, and there may be an etymological connection… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

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  • silk — (n.) O.E. sioloc, seoloc silk, ultimately from an Asian word (Cf. Chinese si silk, Manchurian sirghe, Mongolian sirkek) borrowed into Gk. as serikos silken, serikon silk (Cf. Gk. Seres, a name for an oriental people from whom the Greeks got silk) …   Etymology dictionary

  • silk´en|ly — silk|en «SIHL kuhn», adjective, verb. –adj. 1. a) made of silk: »a silken dress. The king wore silken robes. b) of or having to do with silk stuffs or goods. 2. like silk; soft, smooth, and glossy: »She has silken hair. 3. a) …   Useful english dictionary

  • silk|en — «SIHL kuhn», adjective, verb. –adj. 1. a) made of silk: »a silken dress. The king wore silken robes. b) of or having to do with silk stuffs or goods. 2. like silk; soft, smooth, and glossy: »She has silken hair. 3. a) …   Useful english dictionary

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