Dictionary

silverback en · NOUN

Etymology

From silver + back.

Meanings

1. A mature male gorilla leading a troop, so named from the silver streaking on its back.
   • To be clear, there’s no reason to hate the actual Harambe. After the silverback gorilla was shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2016, people used “RIP Harambe” to… comment on the irony of why we mourn animals but are quick to blame humans? 2019 December 31, AJ Willingham, “All the trends we loved and hated in the 2010s”, in CNN:
2. (broadly, informal) A dominant or powerful older human male.
   • Courageously (given Ranger's status in Mugabe's Zimbabwe, and his status as a silverback in North Atlantic Academe), Kriger dissents from their arguments. 2001, Peter Burke, New Perspectives on Historical Writing, page 145:
   • "That's peanuts. I'm talking about real money," replied [Senator] Ted [Kennedy], who in fact had no idea how much the developer would pay, as that detail had yet to be worked out. / "What are your other main reasons?" Liedell asked, persisting with the old silverback. 2008, Wendy Williams, Robert Whitcomb, Cape Wind: Celebrity, Energy, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future, page 127:
   • There's a story I've been told several times of a dinner at London's Balthazar several years ago, at which assembled guests fell silent as Larry Gagosian—by pretty much any estimation the presiding silverback of the art market—visibly choked on his food. 2025 June 14, Orlando Whitfield, “How to survive a gallery dinner (and not embarrass yourself)”, in FT Weekend (Collecting section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10:
   • "Have you met Professor Dolan, Bishop Blackie?" an Asian child with a beatifically innocent face asked me. "Is he that skinny silverback ape down on the first floor?" 2003, Andrew W. Greeley, The Bishop goes to the University, page 121:
3. Any of various ferns of the genus Pityrogramma.
4. Any member of the species Rhodamnia cinerea of plants of southeastern Asia.

Forms

Coordinates

blackback

Relateds

silver fox

Translations (8)

fr dos argenté (mature male gorilla) · fi hopeaselkä (mature male gorilla) · nl zilverrug (mature male gorilla) · de Silberrücken (mature male gorilla) · tr gümüşsırt (mature male gorilla) · es espalda plateada (mature male gorilla) · pl srebrnogrzbiety samiec (mature male gorilla) · sv silverrygg (mature male gorilla)