silva

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.

• sylva

• sylvan (see for more terms)

• Alvis, Livas, Salvi, Slavi, Sliva, Vasil, Vials, Vilas, vails, valis, vials, vilas

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

• IPA^(key): /ˈsilba/ [ˈs̺il.β̞ɐ]
• Rhymes: -ilba
• Hyphenation: sil‧va

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

• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “silua”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “silva”, in Corpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “silva”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “silva”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “silva”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

• “silva”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, 2012–2026
• “silva”, in Dicionário Estraviz de galego (in Galician), 2014–2026

• silua (poetic)
• sylva

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:
  • (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈsɪɫ.wa]
  • (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈsil.va]
• silvā:
  • (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈsɪɫ.waː]
  • (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈsil.va]

silva f (genitive silvae); first declension

1. wood; forest
2. orchard; grove

First-declension noun.

• “silva”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “silva”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "silva", in Charles du Fresne du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• “silva”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • wooded hills: montes vestiti silvis
    
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 564

• Homophone: Silva
• Hyphenation: sil‧va

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

• “silva”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “silva”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

silva f

1. definite singular nominative of silvă

From English silver.

silva

1. silver