Obs. Also silv-. [In sense 1, ad. L. syl-, silvestris; in sense 2, ad. L. silvestre (sc. grāmum seed), neut. of silvestris: see SYLVESTER a.]
1. In the system of Paracelsus, a spirit of the woods.
1657. H. Pinnell, Philos. Reformed, I. i. 27. In the Aire or our airy world there are Umbratils, Silvesters, Satyrs, whose Monsters are the Gyants. Ibid., II. 15, marg. Gnomes, Sylvesters and Lemures.
2. Name for an inferior kind of cochineal (supposed, like the true cochineal, to be the seed of a plant).
1697. Dampier, Voy., I. v. 124. The Friers get plentiful incomes in other places where they plant Cochoneel Trees, or Silvester Trees. Ibid., viii. 229. The Silvester is a red grain growing in a Fruit much resembling the Cochineel-fruit.
1703. Lond. Gaz., No. 3895/3. Goods out of the Mary Man of War from Vigo, consisting of Sugars,… Campuchina, or Silvester.
[1791. Hamilton, trans. Berthollet’s Art of Dyeing, II. II. III. iii. 170. The sylvestris is a sort of cochineal.]
