Etymograph

English

silver

Silver comes from Old English seolfor, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą ‘silver’, of uncertain origin.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*silubrą1‘silver’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*silubr1‘silver’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150seolfor1‘silver’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500silver1‘silver’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1725silver1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English silver
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1725, Homer, Book X: “For here retir'd the ſinking billows ſleep, / And…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*silubrąWiktionary, English silver‘silver’reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*silubrWiktionary, English silver‘silver’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150seolforWiktionary, English silver‘silver’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500silverWiktionary, English silver‘silver’
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1725silverWiktionary, English silver. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1725, Homer, Book X: “For here retir'd the ſinking billows ſleep, / And…”

The story

Inherited from Middle English silver, selver, sulver, from Old English seolfor, from Proto-West Germanic *silubr, from Proto-Germanic *silubrą (‘silver’), of uncertain origin.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. The Germanic word has parallels in Baltic and Slavic (Old Church Slavonic сьрєбро (sĭrebro), Lithuanian sidabras), Celtic (Celtiberian silaPur-), and outside Indo-European, in Basque zilar and Proto-Berber *a-ẓrəf, but the ultimate origin of the word is unknown.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. Adjective sense 4 (‘denoting a twenty-fifth anniversary’) generalized from silver wedding, itself a calque of German Silberhochzeit.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Proto-Germanic *silubrą

Today it means

noun A lustrous, white, metallic element, atomic number 47, atomic weight 107.87, symbol Ag.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “silver”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *silubrą / silver

Shirt and support for this word