section_path: Etymology
section_name: Etymology
paragraph_text: Etymology
  
  The word silver appears in Old English in various spellings, such as seolfor and siolfor. It is cognate with Old High German silabar; Gothic silubr; or Old Norse silfr, all ultimately deriving from Proto-Germanic *silubra. The Balto-Slavic words for silver are rather similar to the Germanic ones (e.g. Russian серебро, Polish srebro, Lithuanian sidãbras), as is the Celtiberian form silabur. They may have a common Indo-European origin, although their morphology rather suggest a non-Indo-European Wanderwort. Some scholars have thus proposed a Paleo-Hispanic origin, pointing to the Basque form zilharr as an evidence.
  
  The chemical symbol Ag is from the Latin word for silver, argentum (compare Ancient Greek ἄργυρος, árgyros), from the Proto-Indo-European root * h₂erǵ- (formerly reconstructed as *arǵ-), meaning ' white ' or ' shining '. This was the usual Proto-Indo-European word for the metal, whose reflexes are missing in Germanic and Balto-Slavic.