Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag (Greek: άργυρος <árgyros>, Latin: argentum, both from the Indo-European root *arg- for "grey" or "shining") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal. The metal occurs naturally in its pure, free form (native silver), as an alloy with gold and other metals, and in minerals such as argentite and chlorargyrite. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, and zinc refining.
Silver has long been valued as a precious metal, and is used as an investment, to make ornaments, jewelry, high-value tableware, utensils (hence the term silverware), and currency coins. Today, silver metal is also used in electrical contacts and conductors, in mirrors and in catalysis of chemical reactions. Its compounds are used in photographic film, and dilute silver nitrate solutions and other silver compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides (oligodynamic effect). While many medical antimicrobial uses of silver have been supplanted by antibiotics, further research into clinical potential continues.
Read more about Silver: Characteristics, Isotopes, Compounds, Applications, History, Occurrence and Extraction, Price, Human Exposure and Consumption
Other articles related to "silver":
... The commander, grateful for the victory, bestowed the chapel with a large silver votive offering ... a city fire in 1706, punishing a Russian soldier for an attempt to steal her silver clothes in 1708, and numerous miraculous healings ... They are usually small silver objects (hearts, crucifixes, figures of praying people, images of cured eyes, legs, arms) ...
... Dokturishvili Wrestling Men's Greco-Roman (74 kg) 2 Silver Ibragimov, MagomedMagomed Ibragimov Wrestling Men's Freestyle (74 kg) 3 Bronze Sooltonov, BahodirjonBahodirjon Sooltonov Boxing Men's Bantamweight (54 kg ...
... George Silver (ca ... one challenge), and eleventh in descent from Sir Bartholomew Silver, who was knighted by Edward II ...
... century a mixture of cast brass and bronze as well as silver-bronzed copper was adopted ... Other metals were used only rarely, except for silver and gold plating on decorations ... silk (black with gold trim for rulers, red with silver trim for others) ...
... Silver is used in food coloring it has the E174 designation and is approved in the European Union ... The amount of silver in the coating of dragée or as in cookie decoration is minuscule ... The safety of silver for use in food is disputed ...
Famous quotes containing the word silver:
“Walked forth to ease my pain
Along the shore of silver streaming Thames,
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
Was painted all with variable flowers,”
—Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
“The intelligent have a right over the ignorant, namely, the right of instructing them. The right punishment of one out of tune, is to make him play in tune; the fine which the good, refusing to govern, ought to pay, is, to be governed by a worse man; that his guards shall not handle gold and silver, but shall be instructed that there is gold and silver in their souls, which will make men willing to give them every thing which they need.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery, and the sacrifice or wealth and chastity, which used to be said to be the greatest of human disasters, a mere flea-bite in comparison.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)