Etymology

Noun

1. The metal silver.
2. The white or silver tincture on a coat of arms.

   • 1909: The metals are gold and silver, these being termed "or" and "argent". — Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry

Adjective

1. of silver or silver-coloured.
2. : of white or silver tincture on a coat of arms.

   • 1889: ...when the shield is argent, it is shown in an engraving by being left plain. — Charles Norton Elvin, A Dictionary of Heraldry

Quotations

• 1667: Those argent Fields more likely habitants, / Translated Saints, or middle Spirits hold / Betwixt th' Angelical and Human kinde — John Milton, Paradise Lost
• 1733: Or ask of yonder argent fields above, / Why Jove's Satellites are less than Jove? — Alexander Pope, Essay on Man
• 1817: she did soar / So passionately bright, my dazzled soul / Commingling with her argent spheres did roll / Through clear and cloudy — John Keats, Endymion
• 1817: Pardon me, airy planet, that I prize / One thought beyond thine argent luxuries! — John Keats, Endymion
• 1818: Two wings this orb / Possess'd for glory, two fair argent wings — John Keats, Hyperion
• 1819: At length burst in the argent revelry, / With plume, tiara, and all rich array, / Numerous as shadows haunting fairily / The brain — John Keats, The Eve of St Agnes
• 1891:"A castle argent is certainly my crest," said he blandly. — Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles
• 1922: Like John o'Gaunt his name is dear to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a bend sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country. — James Joyce, Ulysses
• 1922: Keep our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. — James Joyce, Ulysses
• 1967: Argent I craft you as the star / Of flower-shut evening — John Berryman, Berryman's Sonnets