the soft, lustrous fiber obtained as a filament from the cocoon of the silkworm.
thread made from this fiber.
cloth made from this fiber.
a garment of this cloth.
a gown of such material worn distinctively by a King's or Queen's Counsel at the English bar.
silks,the blouse and peaked cap, considered together, worn by a jockey or sulky driver in a race.
Informal. a parachute, especially one opened aloft.
any fiber or filamentous matter resembling silk, as a filament produced by certain spiders, the thread of a mollusk, or the like.
the hairlike styles on an ear of corn.
BritishInformal.
a King's or Queen's Counsel.
any barrister of high rank.
adjective
made of silk.
resembling silk; silky.
of or relating to silk.
verb (used without object)
(of corn) to be in the course of developing silk.
Idioms for silk
hit the silk, Slang. to parachute from an aircraft; bail out.
take silk, British. to become a Queen's or King's Counsel.
Origin of silk
First recorded before 900; Middle English noun selk, seolk, solk, Old English sioloc, seol(o)c (cognate with Old Norse silki, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish silke, but not found in other Germanic languages), by uncertain transmission from Latin sērica, noun use of neuter plural adjective sēricus, or from Greek sērikón “silk,” noun use of neuter of sērikós “silken,” literally, “Chinese,” derivative of Latin Sēres, Greek Sêres “the Chinese”; Germanic, Slavic (Old Church Slavonic shelkŭ, Russian shëlk ) and Baltic (Lithuanian šilkai ) all show unexplained change of r to l); cf. seric-
A fiber produced by silkworms to form cocoons. Silk is strong, flexible, and fibrous, and is essentially a long continuous strand of protein. It is widely used to make thread and fabric.
A substance similar to the silk of the silkworm but produced by other insect larvae or by spiders to spin webs.