silence

Silence is a relative or total lack of sound. An environment with sound below 20 decibels is considered quiet or silent.Silence in Social Interaciton; Functions, Meanings, and Interpretations.Silence is noticed through the basic human need of social interaction; communication. Categorized into forms and functions, silence can fall into three distinct sections ( Bruneau, 1973). These categories describe instances either mental or social or a combination thereof, in which silence can be found and thereafter interpreted. First is the Psychological, second Interactive, and third is sociocultural. All of these are distinctly defined through time, context, and perception.
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n. silence, quietness; pause; still, hush; rest

(v. t.)
To restrain from the exercise of any function, privilege of instruction, or the like, especially from the act of preaching; as, to silence a minister of the gospel.
  

(v. t.)
To put to rest; to quiet.
  

(v. t.)
To compel to silence; to cause to be still; to still; to hush.
  

(v. t.)
To cause to cease firing, as by a vigorous cannonade; as, to silence the batteries of an enemy.
  

(n.)
The state of being silent; entire absence of sound or noise; absolute stillness.
  

(n.)
The cessation of rage, agitation, or tumilt; calmness; quiest; as, the elements were reduced to silence.
  

(n.)
Secrecy; as, these things were transacted in silence.
  

(n.)
Forbearance from, or absence of, speech; taciturnity; muteness.
  

(n.)
Absence of mention; oblivion.
  

(interj.)
Be silent; -- used elliptically for let there be silence, or keep silence.
  

Silence Like darkness and space, used in attempts to express the ineffable. To our minds they often seem negative qualities, yet if we ordinarily call silence the absence of sound, it is also possible to call sound the absence of silence. A maxim bids us learn the fullness of the seeming void, the voidness of the seeming full; and, applying this, we may name silence as a mighty positive power, not a mere emptiness. Silence is that in which sound becomes manifest; it is the container of sound, the privation of sound. It means the rest of all the senses, both external and internal. To the personal man such silence may seem an unutterable horror, or a ring-pass-not; but it must be faced if he is to win to the sublimities beyond. All these words are used mystically: thus, what is a silence to our ears, and on higher planes a silence to our soul, may in either instance be celestial harmonies which our grosser nature cannot take in.
The early Gnostics mystically said that the gnosis rests upon a square whose corners are silence (sige), depth (bythos), divine mind (nous), and truth (aletheia). In the system of Simon Magus, the one root from which the aeons proceed is called silence; in Valentinus' system, silence and sempiternal depth proceed from the one root, depth. The Marcosians viewed God under four aspects: the ineffable, the silence, the father, the truth.
The Stanzas of Dzyan (2:2) speak of a time when there was neither silence nor sound; for these constitute a duality, and before this all was cosmic oneness.