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Sylvan
Definitions
- 1 Pertaining to the forest, or woodlands.
"Broke by the jutting Land, on either ſide: / In double Streams the briny Waters glide. / Betwixt two rows of Rocks, a Sylvan Scene / Appears above, and Groves for ever green: […]"
- 2 Residing in a forest or wood.
"Now, my Sacontalá, you are becomingly decorated: put on this lower veſt, the gift of ſylvan goddeſſes."
- 3 Wooded, or covered in forest.
"Nicolet Area Technical College, a Rhinelander green centerpiece, gets high marks not just for its management of more than two hundred acres of sylvan land and its thousand feet of frontage along the pristine shores of Lake Julia, but for being Wisconsin's college campus leader in renewable energy use."
- 1 relating to or characteristic of wooded regions wordnet
- 1 A surname. countable, uncountable
- 2 A place name:; A community in North Middlesex municipality, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada. countable, uncountable
- 3 A place name:; A ghost town in Panther Creek Township, Cass County, Illinois, United States. countable, uncountable
- 4 A place name:; A township in Osceola County, Michigan, United States. countable, uncountable
- 5 A place name:; A township in Washtenaw County, Michigan. countable, uncountable
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- 6 A place name:; A township in Cass County, Minnesota, United States, named after Sylvan Lake. countable, uncountable
- 7 A place name:; A town and unincorporated community therein, in Richland County, Wisconsin, United States. countable, uncountable
- 1 One who resides in the woods.
"[H]e hurried to a masquerade-warehouse in Westminster, where he selected the garb of a sylvan, or a man of the woods, together with a guitar, which he entrusted to a porter, bidding him accompany then to St. James's Park. / "But what connexion is there between a sylvan and a French song accompanied by the guitar?" asked Jocelyn, as they paced rapidly along. / "None whatever," replied his companion, "and, therefore, the better for our purpose. The King has long lost taste for that which is appropriate: to be pleased he must be surprised, and this can only be effected by some absurdity; the more preposterous the more likely to succeed.""
- 2 a spirit that lives in or frequents the woods wordnet
- 3 A fabled deity of the wood; a faun, a satyr.
"And ſeeing it is ſo generall a report, and ſo many auerre it eyther from their owne triall or from others, that are of indubitable honeſtie and credite, that the Syluanes and Fawnes, commonly called Incubi, haue often iniured women, deſiring and acting carnally with them: […]"
Etymology
Borrowed from Medieval Latin sylvanus, possibly via Middle French sylvain, from Latin silvanus, cognate with Latin Silvānus (“Roman god of the woods”), from silva (“forest”), from Proto-Indo-European *sel-, *swel- (“beam, board, frame, threshold”). The ⟨y⟩ in sylvanus and its descendants is due to influence from Ancient Greek ῡ̔́λη (hū́lē, “wood, matter”), transliterated in the Latin style as hyle. Analysable as sylva (“silva”) + -an.
Borrowed from Medieval Latin sylvanus, possibly via Middle French sylvain, from Latin silvanus, cognate with Latin Silvānus (“Roman god of the woods”), from silva (“forest”), from Proto-Indo-European *sel-, *swel- (“beam, board, frame, threshold”). The ⟨y⟩ in sylvanus and its descendants is due to influence from Ancient Greek ῡ̔́λη (hū́lē, “wood, matter”), transliterated in the Latin style as hyle. Analysable as sylva (“silva”) + -an.
An altered form of French Sylvain, or borrowed from Swedish Sylvan.
See also for "sylvan"
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