Definition of "silk" []

• A fine lustrous fiber composed mainly of fibroin and produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons, especially the strong, elastic, fibrous secretion of silkworms used to make thread and fabric. (noun)
• Thread or fabric made from this fiber. (noun)
• A garment made from this fabric. (noun)
• The brightly colored identifying garments of a jockey or harness driver. (noun)
• A silky filamentous material, such as the webbing spun by certain spiders or the styles forming a tuft on an ear of corn. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "As the Oxford statutes have recently been published, the matter is not so much in the dark, -- black silk being the material prescribed for the lining of hoods of Doctors in Divinity, and those of the doctors in the other faculties being prescribed to be of _silk of any intermediate colour_, which the Oxford doctors understand to mean a deep rose-colour."
• "_A cotton and silk umbrella_ means one umbrella partly cotton and partly silk; _cotton_ and _silk_ modify the same noun -- _umbrella_."
• "There are two kinds of silk (1) _raw silk_ (reeled silk, thrown silk, drawn silk), and (2) _waste silk_ or spun silk."