English · Idiom Candidate

speech is silver, silence is golden

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

It is often better to remain silent than to speak

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Thường thì im lặng tốt hơn là nói

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: speech is comparable to silver, silence to gold

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

She decided that speech is silver, silence is golden and didn't comment on the controversy

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Topics: Gold & silver

Common questions

What does “speech is silver, silence is golden” mean?

It is often better to remain silent than to speak Literally: speech is comparable to silver, silence to gold

Is “speech is silver, silence is golden” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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