SILENCE


Meaning of SILENCE in English

I. noun

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a brief silence

After a brief silence, she made another suggestion.

a deathly hush/silence (= complete silence )

A deathly hush fell over the room.

a vow of silence/poverty/celibacy etc

People close to him have finally broken their vow of silence.

an embarrassed silence

There was an embarrassed silence, then Gina laughed loudly.

awkward silence

an awkward silence

companionable silence

They sat together in companionable silence .

glum silence

After dinner, Kate lapsed into a glum silence .

long silence/pause/delay etc

There was a long silence before anybody spoke.

ominous silence

‘How long will she be ill?’ he asked. There was an ominous silence .

shocked silence

There was a moment of shocked silence.

Silence reigned

Silence reigned while we waited for news.

stony silence

a stony silence

stony-faced silence

Tony stared at me in stony-faced silence .

stunned silence

The audience sat in stunned silence .

thoughtful silence

a thoughtful silence

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADJECTIVE

absolute

But the countryside! Absolute deafening silence .

The lights, the stillness, the absolute silence can capture the soul.

The air was delicate and there was a complete, absolute silence .

Everything seemed to conspire to an absolute stillness and silence .

As soon as he had the paper in his hand the door slammed again. Absolute silence reigned.

The woods were in absolute silence .

But there was absolute silence in the house.

There was a smell of disinfectant. Absolute silence .

awkward

An awkward silence fell between them.

When we got to the restaurant, there was an awkward silence as I took out my tape recorder.

There was another awkward silence , broken by the laughter from the bar.

Spider said after an awkward silence .

There was an awkward silence which Maidstone might have broken with some amiable remark to save Sandison's face.

An awkward silence would do them both good.

If Jack had been at all concerned that his impulsive gesture would result in an awkward silence he need not have worried.

She figured the awkward silence was partly the result of people believing that only big topics were worthy of being discussed.

brief

There was a brief , tense silence .

I had to wait for a brief silence between cuts to pound on the doorframe.

There was a brief silence like an indrawn breath.

complete

The other three pairs came from the trees and down the sloping fields in complete silence .

The crowd was stunned, and Bachelor's Button returned to unsaddle in almost complete silence .

Once again he had gained complete silence .

The air was delicate and there was a complete , absolute silence .

They drove home in almost complete silence .

The rest of the drive home passed in almost complete silence .

The boy moved quickly, just ahead of Allen, guiding him more than walking with him, in complete silence .

dead

The dead silence was broken only by a regular drip, drip, drip.

There was only the sound of their own firing, then a dead silence .

In dead silence Harley surveyed his putt and Jefferson took up his usual position beside the pin.

The dead silence made contact impossible.

A dead silence greeted this unusual flow of words from Mr van der Luyden.

Then there was a dead silence .

But the question was met by dead silence .

heavy

She knew that if she didn't speak Carla would get more and more nervous, eventually breaking the heavy silence herself.

Not a bird, not an insect, not a zephyr relieves that hot, heavy silence .

For at least two minutes a heavy silence filled the hut.

There is sun, heavy silence , a pervasive scent of parched vegetation, a lizard materialized on a rock.

A heavy silence sank down on them.

Most unwillingly they went and stood before the hero in heavy silence .

long

There was a long silence , both of them sobered by the knowledge that casualties were likely.

After more hushed discussion and an even longer silence , the driver got back into the truck and started up.

There was running and shouting outside, then a long wait in silence .

There was a long silence in the room.

In the long silence that stretched between them she could almost hear her heart pounding like a sledge-hammer in her chest.

Eventually the ground seemed to stabilize and there was a long silence during which the mist curled slowly upwards.

There was a long silence as Merrill fought a desire to drop the subject which had goaded her ever since Elise died.

Click, pause, click, a long silence .

ominous

An ominous silence .. now intervened...

There is a deep, ominous silence .

But the first few readings he had assigned had produced an ominous silence .

short

The short silence encourages the audience to take notice and concentrate.

During the short silence the audience was to try to put together the images of Auschwitz and Agincourt.

stony

Whatever their hairstyles, serious critics mostly maintained a stony silence .

To avoid further childishness Leonora took refuge in stony , obdurate silence .

Mutinously she flicked her gaze back to where he was surveying her in stony silence .

Ned appeared to be whispering sweet nothings in her ear but his attentions were being met with a stony silence !

stunned

They were immediately followed by a stunned silence .

A stunned silence fell over the racecourse as he lay motionless in the grass while Heraldic galloped on.

The visitor would understandably back off quickly and there would either be pandemonium or an utter, stunned silence .

In stunned silence , her eyes huge, disbelieving, she stared at him.

There was to be no stunned silence , no aghast staring and, it seemed, no dramatic response from Greg.

He stared at her for a second in stunned silence , breathing hard, his eyes dazed.

Mrs Palichuk was reduced to stunned silence for a moment.

There was a moment of stunned silence .

sudden

At the mention of Hilary Frome a sudden silence fell over the room.

The Poole family, grouped rather self-consciously round the birthday cake on Earth, lapsed into a sudden silence .

Such a traveller may sleep soundly and awaken refreshed - that is, unless the train stops and the sudden silence wakes him.

In the sudden silence Isabel thought she could almost hear the life of the garden, preparing for its spring blossoming.

Mafouz fell heavily to earth amidst sudden , devastating silence .

In the sudden silence that followed, she realized that something was wrong.

All at once he was disturbed by a sudden silence .

tense

The meal was held virtually in tense silence .

So they sat in tense silence together, reading.

The scary bits created tense silence , while relieved cheers followed the good moments.

Laura and I sat in tense silence , listening to the creak of the stairs.

Inside the room, tense silence reigned.

It was a long drive from the airport, made tedious by the unnatural, tense silence in the cab.

When he sat down again there was a long, tense silence .

Everyone worked in tense silence , concentrating on their own particular task.

total

He was greeted with massive and ironic cheers from the Opposition and listened to in almost total silence by our own benches.

The civilian crew of the Kora Sea observed strict social segregation, so Hicks and Gaylord played in nearly total silence .

In a nine or ten acre plot crammed full with people, there was total , blanket silence .

They eat in total silence and shuffle out again.

Just one thing dough don't buy ya in this town, fella; total silence .

There was a total silence in the house, and the room was full of moonlight.

Probably the most frequently used rejection is total silence .

■ VERB

break

The roar of a furnace engine broke the silence .

The sound of stockinged legs moving across the room finally broke the silence .

Finally Shelley felt she had to break the silence .

A footstep broke the silence and approached to within ten paces of Blackburn and waited.

It may be tempting to break the silence , but you can only do that by being more dogmatic or by compromising.

It is that shout that needs to break the silence .

A drumroll breaks the silence: loud, insistent, nerve-shattering.

drive

When they travelled together in a police car they had driven around in silence .

They drove in silence , back to Kalkara.

We drive on in subdued silence .

Felipe drove in silence and they were soon back - a fact that brought a slight tinge of regret to her face.

We had driven in silence and walked in silence and eaten fish in silence.

eat

They ate quickly and in silence .

As usual, after the first appreciative murmurs, we sat and ate our meal in silence .

They ate their toast in silence .

Resigned to bananas, Fong ate thern in silence , with chopsticks.

Jack ate in silence before returning to his position.

We ate our breakfast in silence , rolled up our blankets, and patiently waited for orders.

Agnes Resker refused to eat anything, while Mavis Pellington ate her meal in silence .

They eat in total silence and shuffle out again.

follow

They were immediately followed by a stunned silence .

Next he heard footsteps going up the stairs, followed by silence .

Benjamin whispered to her and I heard her hissed reply, followed by silence .

The shape it made created its own following silence , and they sat, both in the ease of it.

The shuffling stopped, followed by a long silence .

There followed the longest silence I can ever recall at a seance.

There followed a silence that Nicandra could neither interrupt nor question - they were the Grown-Ups.

hear

First you hear the silence and then you hear it.

For a long while she heard them in silence .

We must be silent talking with angels we must hear silence if we are to speak to it.

Have you ever heard a silence in a room at night or a great silence alone in the middle of a wood?

The listeners are trained to hear and interpret silences , sighs, sobs and so on.

Nestled beside his cooling body, she slept, until she heard silence and realized her eyes were open.

Let us hear those sounds we have heard in that silence when we have put a handkerchief to our eyes.

Jack listened, but all he heard was silence .

keep

He, too, has decided to keep a public silence .

But for the most part Monet kept her usual sullen silence .

Adam kept his silence and cursed his helplessness.

She, too, probably knows a lot of what went on behind Palace doors but has kept a dignified silence .

The one unshaded light bulb shone continuously down at her, and she was kept in complete silence .

Do not feel it is up to you to keep filling the silence if you have nothing more you want to say.

lapse

As the rest of the tawdry tale emerged the Foreign Office and Downing Street lapsed into embarrassed silence .

But ultimately, words fail them and they lapse into silence .

Edward lapsed once more into strangled silence .

The Poole family, grouped rather self-consciously round the birthday cake on Earth, lapsed into a sudden silence .

He had lapsed into a frozen silence which she found more worrying than his screams.

Without my prompting, Jack often lapsed into silence .

I would talk and laugh with my companions but withdraw, lapsing into silence , when I was offered any food.

She lapsed into a deep silence which I did not try to disturb.

listen

Tallis, listening to the silence , realized that Wynne-Jones was whispering to Old-woman-who-sang-to-the-river.

It did little to relieve; everyone listened in silence to the words and watched Saiii Fong.

I ask the House to listen in reasonable silence for the next two minutes.

I stood in that bathroom, water off, and listened to the silence of the tile.

They sat in his room whilst the wind whistled about the eaves of the Manse, and listened to him in silence .

I let up on it, listened to the silence , then buzzed again, a little longer this time.

Lessing listened in silence and said he was staying.

I stood on that porch listening to the silence , watching the white clouds in the dark blue summer sky.

maintain

Whatever their hairstyles, serious critics mostly maintained a stony silence .

Her chapped lips maintained a shrieking silence .

Pooley's Piaget wristwatch had now ceased its ticking for good and all and maintained a sullen rusting silence .

The new arrangement caused much criticism of the administrative board members, who maintained a discreet silence .

They hoped to maintain radio silence .

Red Cloud himself, now an old man, maintained an ambiguous silence .

On the subject of all these movements the radio maintained an obstinate silence .

Their tactics were to be to maintain a tight-lipped silence punctuated by claims that the new job was harder.

shatter

A pin dropping in the attic would have shattered the silence .

Her loud wails shattered the silence of the willow grove.

Road-block salvo shatters Bucharest's fragile silence .

Its shrill jangle shattered the intense silence .

After a good few minutes, I shattered this silence by asking what we should do.

A dropped pin would shatter the silence in bars during televised lottery draws.

sit

So they sat in tense silence together, reading.

Reagan sat in silence for another moment.

Enigmatically, Boon sits in silence for a while.

They sat in silence for a while.

How he could just sit there in that silence was the hardest thing I have ever tried to figure out.

We sat in silence , peering out the window.

We sat in silence as the trap entered the estate grounds.

stand

They stood close together in silence , listening.

The hall is gone, and in its place only a dark ruin stands , with the silence of death about it.

The Norderns looked at Marx who stood before them as if he was quite happy to stand there in silence all day.

The world stood by in silence .

The pub stood back in silence .

If I can stand the silence Ive got it licked.

They all stood around in silence .

When Mrs Wade returned with a sack for Petey, she stood beside Lois in silence and then pointed.

suffer

However, there is no need to continue suffering in silence .

This time we would not give in, we would take the pain and suffer in silence .

One in six women are believed to be victims of domestic violence, yet many are suffering in silence .

When this happens, the wives are ignored, left to suffer in silence .

It was more than he could bear to see the stupidity around him and just suffer it in silence .

Should Janice suffer in silence in the face of continued unfair treatment by her head?

Some of them may be men like John, forced by their male pride and their self-image to suffer in silence .

She clenched her fists, determined to suffer in silence .

walk

They walked a little way in silence .

We walked along in silence , the snow crunching beneath our feet.

They walked in silence while he absorbed this new twist.

One may be visiting with a fried, as Cooley imaginatively walks in the silence of the woods with Thoreau.

Agnes and the priest walked in embarrassed silence for a while.

Simon walked beside him in silence .

They walk in silence for a moment.

We walked in silence for a long time.

watch

Everyone was watching in silence , awaiting his verdict.

Deborah watched in silence as I pinched his fingers, his ears, even nudged the responsible organ.

They watched in silence for a time.

The girls sit and watch in silence .

Yesterday afternoon onlookers watched in silence as the mangled Land Rover was removed from the Newcastle / London line.

She watched him in self-righteous silence .

Gosse had been watching all in silence , his jaw clenched, his neck muscles taut.

We watched in silence as the first two items were dealt with.

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

break the silence

A footstep broke the silence and approached to within ten paces of Blackburn and waited.

Finally Shelley felt she had to break the silence.

Only the eerie tinkle of leg irons and shouted commands break the silence.

Protestant voices now and then broke the silence.

She would have to think of something to say in a minute to break the silence.

The only sound to break the silence of the night was the soft mutter of my engine.

The roar of a furnace engine broke the silence.

The sound of stockinged legs moving across the room finally broke the silence.

conspiracy of silence

There has been a conspiracy of silence about violations of regulations.

Curiously enough the Dunrossness District Plan avoids mentioning these negative aspects, so was there a conspiracy of silence here?

Should you be acting as the peacemaker in your family, or the one who breaks the conspiracy of silence?

Sometimes children need to break the conspiracy of silence.

The conspiracy of silence about teenage sexuality had many results.

The overall effect is precisely the same as if there were an organised conspiracy of silence among churchmen.

The whole thing sometimes appears such an enigma that there might almost have been a conspiracy of silence.

Then, there is the conspiracy of silence which is part of the legacy of Northern Ireland.

There is a conspiracy of silence about what is happening, says Christina Hardyment That's entertainment.

deafening silence

Activists criticized the state's deafening silence on the issue of immigration.

All that remained on the barren expanse was a deafening silence.

But while those hotspots are continuously monitored by diplomats and the media, the Chechen misery prompts nothing but a deafening silence.

Once again the answer was a deafening silence.

The most extraordinary feature of the Opposition's response has been the deafening silence of their principal spokesman in relation to the proposals.

We submitted a carefully considered response at the end of June, since when there has been a deafening silence. 3.

heavy silence/atmosphere

A heavy silence fell upon the room.

A heavy silence sank down on them.

For at least two minutes a heavy silence filled the hut.

He has a ready supply, and despite the heavy atmosphere and flat light it carries us out to Langdale.

Most unwillingly they went and stood before the hero in heavy silence.

Not a bird, not an insect, not a zephyr relieves that hot, heavy silence.

She knew that if she didn't speak Carla would get more and more nervous, eventually breaking the heavy silence herself.

There is sun, heavy silence, a pervasive scent of parched vegetation, a lizard materialized on a rock.

lapse into unconsciousness/silence/sleep etc

But ultimately, words fail them and they lapse into silence.

I would talk and laugh with my companions but withdraw, lapsing into silence, when I was offered any food.

Soon after that she would lapse into sleep, then unconsciousness, then a state of deep coma.

Without my prompting, Jack often lapsed into silence.

pregnant pause/silence

The problem with his lofty sentiments and pregnant pauses was that they were completely eclipsed by his reputation.

There was a long silence - what I think might be called a pregnant pause.

reduce sb to tears/silence etc

At mealtimes, Kornemann would rail at his wife in front of the boys, reducing her to tears.

He has in his grasp the ability to reduce anyone to tears, through a snappy headline or lurid story.

Initially, it was the existential absurdity of his predicament that reduced Sooty to silence.

It becomes the subject of innumerable short stories and songs, of films that reduce their audiences to tears.

Outside in her car she kept a tight grip on herself, refusing to let her humiliation reduce her to tears.

She would come home in tears and reduce my wife to tears.

They might stop me having visitors if they think I reduce them to tears.

shatter the silence/peace

silence/a hush/sadness etc falls

swear sb to secrecy/silence

Amy told no one else except her younger brother Howard, and she swore him to secrecy.

He swore his family to secrecy and tried to continue living a normal life, making regular stage appearances and several movies.

Jett swore me to secrecy, with particular reference to you.

Lois had sworn her to secrecy.

No, surely he would swear her to secrecy - if he really did agree in the end to Miguel's request.

She swore him to secrecy and asked him to build the barrel.

They swore one another to secrecy.

This time I had taken the precaution of tipping off the organizers in advance and swearing them to silence.

veil of secrecy/deceit/silence etc

He had apparently recovered from his visit to Johanna, hiding his feelings behind the usual veil of secrecy.

Justice can not prevail under a veil of secrecy or behind doors that do not open.

The client has thrown a veil of secrecy over the development, with contractors reluctant to discuss the project.

wall of silence/secrecy

A wall of silence has now descended over the key players.

Blount met with a convenient wall of silence.

But the wall of silence that protected behind the scenes negotiations produced no answers.

Only Jim Crane, ambitious but a little more human than the other hacks, can break Alice's wall of silence.

Other cracks in the wall of secrecy have appeared in recent years, as we shall see in Chapter 5.

Very soon a cold stone wall of silence had tormented them to wounded exasperation.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

"What did you do during the war?" Rob asked. There was a deathly silence , and everyone looked down at the table.

A voice echoed in the silence .

After years of silence , we were talking on the phone every few weeks.

Nothing disturbed the silence of the night.

The school observed a minute of silence in honor of the students who had died.

There was a long silence before anyone answered.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

And then silence again and the whole sequence begins anew.

Enigmatically, Boon sits in silence for a while.

He lit his cigar and we sat in silence for a long moment.

I resented her silence too, it cut me out.

The only sound to break the silence of the night was the soft mutter of my engine.

Yearn to be surrounded by marble, priceless manuscripts and silence ?

II. verb

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ NOUN

attempt

Youths fired an arrow through the window of one house and set light to another in an attempt to silence them.

More important, an attempt by legislators to silence both prosecutors and judges defeats the spirit of co-equal branches of government.

critic

Kylie's voice - backed up by a sophisticated set of taped effects in case of emergency - had silenced many of her critics .

This is because balding has helped women humble and silence our male critics .

voice

Buxton, perhaps despite himself, grew anxious not to alienate Tory support, even if that meant silencing more liberal voices .

The threat of imperialist attack remains, and the bureaucracy uses this threat quite consciously to periodically silence the voices of opposition.

Rationality equals oppression and the silencing of marginalized voices !

■ VERB

reduce

Initially, it was the existential absurdity of his predicament that reduced Sooty to silence .

PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

conspiracy of silence

There has been a conspiracy of silence about violations of regulations.

Curiously enough the Dunrossness District Plan avoids mentioning these negative aspects, so was there a conspiracy of silence here?

Should you be acting as the peacemaker in your family, or the one who breaks the conspiracy of silence?

Sometimes children need to break the conspiracy of silence.

The conspiracy of silence about teenage sexuality had many results.

The overall effect is precisely the same as if there were an organised conspiracy of silence among churchmen.

The whole thing sometimes appears such an enigma that there might almost have been a conspiracy of silence.

Then, there is the conspiracy of silence which is part of the legacy of Northern Ireland.

There is a conspiracy of silence about what is happening, says Christina Hardyment That's entertainment.

deafening silence

Activists criticized the state's deafening silence on the issue of immigration.

All that remained on the barren expanse was a deafening silence.

But while those hotspots are continuously monitored by diplomats and the media, the Chechen misery prompts nothing but a deafening silence.

Once again the answer was a deafening silence.

The most extraordinary feature of the Opposition's response has been the deafening silence of their principal spokesman in relation to the proposals.

We submitted a carefully considered response at the end of June, since when there has been a deafening silence. 3.

heavy silence/atmosphere

A heavy silence fell upon the room.

A heavy silence sank down on them.

For at least two minutes a heavy silence filled the hut.

He has a ready supply, and despite the heavy atmosphere and flat light it carries us out to Langdale.

Most unwillingly they went and stood before the hero in heavy silence.

Not a bird, not an insect, not a zephyr relieves that hot, heavy silence.

She knew that if she didn't speak Carla would get more and more nervous, eventually breaking the heavy silence herself.

There is sun, heavy silence, a pervasive scent of parched vegetation, a lizard materialized on a rock.

pregnant pause/silence

The problem with his lofty sentiments and pregnant pauses was that they were completely eclipsed by his reputation.

There was a long silence - what I think might be called a pregnant pause.

veil of secrecy/deceit/silence etc

He had apparently recovered from his visit to Johanna, hiding his feelings behind the usual veil of secrecy.

Justice can not prevail under a veil of secrecy or behind doors that do not open.

The client has thrown a veil of secrecy over the development, with contractors reluctant to discuss the project.

wall of silence/secrecy

A wall of silence has now descended over the key players.

Blount met with a convenient wall of silence.

But the wall of silence that protected behind the scenes negotiations produced no answers.

Only Jim Crane, ambitious but a little more human than the other hacks, can break Alice's wall of silence.

Other cracks in the wall of secrecy have appeared in recent years, as we shall see in Chapter 5.

Very soon a cold stone wall of silence had tormented them to wounded exasperation.

EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES

Angry residents are suing the church to silence the bell at night.

At last, Switzer had a chance to silence his critics.

I opened my mouth to speak but she silenced me with an angry look.

Opponents of the regime are quickly silenced.

Partick was livid, but Jane squeezed his arm to silence him.

Police used violence and threats to silence the party's political opponents.

The Mafia uses threats of physical violence or death to silence any opposition.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

Fong said nothing; he had started to object but was silenced by more abuse.

Reformists allege that the killings were part of a campaign by state-sponsored death squads to silence dissent.

The article silenced Diem, who had immediately surmised its source, but it did not sway Taylor.

Then he became angry, and threatened that he would silence me for ever, if I would not agree.

Longman DOCE5 Extras English vocabulary.      Дополнительный английский словарь Longman DOCE5.