silver

White, lustrous, extremely malleable and ductile, metallic element, atomic number 47, relative atomic mass 107.868. Its chemical symbol comes from the Latin argentum. It occurs in nature in ores and as a free metal; the chief ores are sulphides, from which the metal is extracted by smelting with lead. It is the best metallic conductor of both heat and electricity; its most useful compounds are the chloride and bromide, which darken on exposure to light and are the basis of photographic emulsions.

Silver is used ornamentally, for jewellery and tableware, for coinage, in electroplating, electrical contacts, and dentistry, and as a solder. It has been mined since prehistory; its name is an ancient non-Indo-European one, silubr, borrowed by the Germanic branch as silber.