silken

adj

1. (not-comparable)Made of silk.

   “a silken veil”

2. (not-comparable)Synonym of silky, like silk, silklike, particularly

   “[L]ove is not to be bought, in any ſenſe of the vvords, its ſilken vvings are inſtantly ſhrivelled up vvhen any thing beſide a return in kind is ſought.”

   “[…] in spite of the buzz in the next room, Edith had rolled herself up into a soft ball of muslin and ribbon, and silken curls, and gone off into a peaceful little after-dinner nap.”

   “He heard the silken rustle of a dressing-gown being drawn on.”

3. (not-comparable)Synonym of silky, like silk, silklike, particularly

   “[…] an admired silken-mannered gentleman in society, a tolerable polecat at home […]”

4. (figuratively, not-comparable)Synonym of silky, like silk, silklike, particularly

   “Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, / Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, / Figures pedantical; these summer-flies / Have blown me full of maggot ostentation:”

   “Come then youth, Beauty, and Blood, all ye soft powers, / Whose silken flatteryes swell a few fond houres.”

5. (not-comparable)Dressed in silk.

   “[S]hall a beardless boy, / A cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields […]?”

   “Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greet / Every fine silken painted foole we meet, / He then to him with amorous smiles allures,”

   “Last Saturday was three Weeks, at Two, in the Afternoon, I sent out my Servant, to watch a Couple of these Silken Strollers, and keep, if possible, within Ken of them.”

   “[…] the Viceroy moved magnificently through India, resplendent with all the colour and dash of the vast Empire at his feet, with his superb bodyguard jangling scarlet beside his carriage, silken Indian princes bowing at his carpet, generals quivering at the salute and ceremonial salutes of thirty-one guns […]”

verb

1. (transitive)To render silken or silklike.

   “silkening body lotion”

   “Or, if your sheep are of Silurian breed, Nightly to house them dry on fern or straw, Silk’ning their fleeces.”

   “[…] these lights silkened her black skin:”