Silva or sylva?
silva is a noun meaning “The forest trees of a particular area”; sylva is a noun meaning “Alternative spelling of silva”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) silva is about 49 times as common as sylva.
What is the difference between silva and sylva?
| silva | sylva | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | The forest trees of a particular area | Alternative spelling of silva |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | silvas, silvae | sylvas, sylvae |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | not recorded |
| In writing | 5.9 times per million words | about once in every 8 million words |
Sources: silva and sylva in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of silva and sylva
silva
- 1
The forest trees of a particular area
sylva
- 1
Alternative spelling of silva
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, silva or sylva?
silva appears 5.9 times per million words; sylva about once in every 8 million words.
silva 5.9 times per million wordssylva about once in every 8 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).