silvered

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of silver.

   Craftsmen silvered the back of the mirror to give it a reflective surface.

   The cold air silvered the windowpanes with a thin layer of ice.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one -ed spelling covers the simple past and both participles: craftsmen silvered it, it has been silvered, it was silvered by hand. The verb works both ways. Age silvers hair, but hair can also silver with no object at all. Once the participle settles into a description, it becomes the coated-with-metal adjective or the gray-with-age adjective, which compare as more silvered and most silvered.

   Her hair silvered early, long before her fortieth birthday.

   Over the long winter the old fence silvered in the rain and wind.

2. 2
   adjective

   Coated with a layer of silver, making a surface reflective or shiny through the applied metal.

   The silvered backing of the old looking glass had begun to flake away at the edges.

   A finely silvered tray caught the lamplight and threw it across the room.

   Similarplated

3. 3
   adjective

   Grown white or gray with age; having silver-colored hair.

   His once-dark temples were now silvered, lending him a quiet dignity.

   The silvered matriarch presided over the family table with calm authority.

   Similargray, grizzled, hoary, white

   Note

   The color of age, carried from the head to the life itself. Salman Rushdie's Fury (2001) places a professor "in his silvered years", meaning the years of gray hair, and sets them playfully against "a golden age". The word can describe hair, a person, or a stretch of life. Unlike the plated-metal meaning, nothing is applied: silvered hair has turned that color on its own.

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