Not speaking, or making a noise with the voice; withholding or restraining vocal sounds; mute; dumb; speechless: as, a silent spectator; silent watchers.
In a restricted use, not given to speaking; using; few words; not loquacious.
Not speaking about some specified thing; withholding mention or statement; saying nothing; uncommunicative.
Lacking authority or ability to speak, as about something of personal concern; not having a voice; disqualified for speech: as, a silent partner in a firm (see partner); the silent part of creation.
Not uttered or expressed with the voice; unmarked by utterance or demonstrative speech; unspoken; unsounded: as, silent agony or endurance; silent opposition; a silent letter (see below).
Free from or unattended by noise or sound; marked by stillness; quiet: as, silent woods; a silent assembly.
Synonyms and Silent, Taciturn, Dumb, Mute. Silent expresses the fact of not speaking, taciturn the habitual disposition to refrain from speaking. Dumb strictly implies lack of the organs of speech, or defect in them, or lack of the power of speaking, while mute implies some special cause: hence deaf-mute is thought by many a better name than deaf-and-dumb person for one who does not speak on account of deafness; an idol is dumb, not mute. Under figurative extension mute, dumb, and silent are often used outside of the lines here indicated. In such freer use there is an advance in strength from silent, to mute and from mute to dumb: as, silent from abstraction; mute with astonishment; struck dumb with horror.
noun.
A silent period.
noun.
A short-circuit switch attached to an electric alarm, which when closed prevents the alarm from acting.