Chapter Siguna to Silver Wedding of S by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

with the green. The thread is girt about their loins, and no ribbon of the Legion of Honour, or Knight of the Garter, is won more worthily or worn more proudly. (Gulliver's Travels.)

Silly is the German selig (blessed), whence the infant Jesus is termed “the harmless silly babe,” and sheep are called “silly,” meaning harmless or innocent. As the “holy” are easily taken in by wordly cunning, the word came to signify “gullible,” “foolish,” (See Simplicity .)

Silly Season (The), for daily newspapers, is when Parliament is not in session, and all sorts of “silly” stuff are vamped-up for padding. Also called the “Big Gooseberry Season,” because paragraphs are often inserted on this subject.

Siluria - that is, Hereford, Monmouth, Radnor, Brecon, and Glamorgan. The “sparkling wines of the Silurian vats” are cider and perry.

“From Silurian vats, high-sparkling wines
Foam in transparent floods.”
Thomson: Autumn.

Silurian Rocks A name given by Sir R. Murchison to what miners call gray-wacke, and Werner termed transition rocks. Sir Roderick called them Silurian because it was in the region of the ancient Silures that he investigated them.

Silvana A maga or fata in Tasso's Amadigi, where she is made the guardian spirit of Alidoro.

Silvanella A beautiful maga or fata in Bojardo, who raised a tomb over Narcissus, and then dissolved into a fountain. (Lib. ii. xvii. 56, etc.)

Silver was, by the ancient alchemists, called Diana or the Moon.

Silver The Frenchman employs the word silver to designate money, the wealthy Englishman uses the word gold, and the poorer old Roman brass (aes).
   Silver and gold articles are marked with five marks: the maker's private mark, the standard or assay mark, the hall mark, the duty mark, and the date mark. The standard mark states the proportion of silver, to which figure is added a lion passant for England, a harp crowned for Ireland, a thistle for Edinburgh, and a lion rampant for Glasgow. (For the other marks, see Mark.)

Silver Cooper (The). A kidnapper. “To play the silver cooper,” to kidnap. A cooper is one who coops up another.

“You rob and you murder and you want me to ... play the silver cooper.”- Sir W. Scott: Guy Mannering, chap. xxxiv.

Silver Fork School Those novelists who are sticklers for etiquette and the graces of society, such as Theodore Hook, Lady Blessington, Mrs. Trollope, and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton (Lord Lytton).

Silver-hand Nuad, the chieftain who led back the tribe of the Danaans from Scotland to Ireland, whence they had migrated. Nuad of the Silver-hand had an artificial hand of silver made by Cred, the goldsmith, to supply the loss sustained from a wound in the battle of Moytura. Miach, son of Dian Kect, set it on the wrist. (O'Flaherty: Ogygia, part iii. chap. x.) (See Iron Hand.)

Silver Lining The prospect of better days, the promise of happier times. The allusion is to Milton's Comus, where the lady lost in the wood resolves to hope on, and sees a “sable cloud turn forth its silver lining to the night.”

Silver Pheasant (A). A beautiful young lady of the high aristocracy.

“One would think you were a silver pheasant, you give yourself such airs.”- Ouida: Under Two Flags.