silva - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Borrowed from Latin silva. Doublet of selva.

silva (plural silvas or silvae)

  1. (forestry) The forest trees of a particular area
    • 1909, Willis Linn Jepson, The Trees of California, page 13:
      The most interesting and striking features of the silva of California relate to its composition, the geographical distribution of the species and their biological history.

Silvas

From Old Galician-Portuguese silva, from Latin silva (“forest”).

silva f (plural silvas)

  1. bramble, blackberry bush
    • 1460, José Antonio Souto Cabo, editor, Crónica de Santa María de Íria, Santiago: Ediciós do Castro, page 101:
      vijã grande[s] lumes de candeas arder de noyte et de dia en huũ monte muy espeso de muytas aruores et siluas, a oyto mjlias de Yria
      they saw large candle fires, burning day and night, in a very close forest, of trees and bambles, eight milles from Iria
    • 1884, Marcial Valladares Núñez, Diccionario gallego-castellano, s.v. silva:
      Tente, silva; non me prendas, que n'estou n'a miña tèrra (traditional song)
      Hold yourself, bramble, don't catch me, 'cos I'm not in my country
  2. (archaic) forest
  3. white stripe on a horse head

Silva

Traditionally derived from Proto-Indo-European *sel-, *swel- (“firewood, wood, beam, board, frame, threshold”), and compared with Ancient Greek ὕλη (húlē, “wood, timber”) and Old English syl (“sill, threshold, foundation”). However, De Vaan is implicitly skeptical of this derivation, and leaves the origin open.

silva f (genitive silvae); first declension

  1. wood; forest
  2. orchard; grove

First-declension noun.

silvas

From Old Galician-Portuguese silva, from Latin silva, from Proto-Indo-European *swel-, *sel- (“mountain, ridge, forest”). Compare the doublet selva and Galician silva.

The /i/ is puzzling. Philologist Leite de Vasconcelos felt that the word was not a Latinism and conjectured a term spīna *silvea with the same suffix as ligneus and pīneus, where the close post-tonic vowel would cause the stressed vowel to rise, as in marisma and sirgo.[1]

silva f (plural silvas)

  1. bramble (any of various thorny shrubs, especially those in the family Rubus)
    Synonyms: espinheiro, sarça
  2. (in particular) blackberry (Rubus fruticosus)
    Synonyms: amoreira, amora-silvestre, amoreira-silvestre

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

silva

  1. inflection of silvar:

    1. third-person singular present indicative
    2. second-person singular imperative

  2. ^ 1920, Leite de Vasconcellos, Revista Lusitana, volume 23, page 188

silva f

  1. definite singular nominative of silvă
Chemical element (edit)
AgAtomic number 47silva
Classification data Period 5 Group 11 Block d-block Class transition metal
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From English silver.

silva

  1. silver