silent vs silence

[English4everyone]

Hello everybody,

The topic that I want to mention is a topic that I asked about two or three years ago! But I still have problems with this. Can you help, please?
What is the difference between silent and silence in "keep silent" and "keep silence"?
Situation:
A teacher is teaching and then he is summoned. When he comes back in ten minutes, he sees his students making noise.
Now he wants to make a sentence. Which one?
The teacher to students:
"I told you to keep silent while I'm out."
"I told you to keep silence while I'm out."
Thanks.

 

[MikeNewYork]

"Silent" is an adjective and "silence" is a noun. In your use, you need the adjective.

 

[Rover_KE]

You got the same answer from Raymott here. Things haven't changed much since 2011.

However, they have changed since 275AD, when the hymn 'Let all mortal flesh keep silence' was translated from the Greek and is still sung in Christian churches today.

Avoid 'keep silence', english4everyone.

 

[English4everyone]

:up:
So you mean in the example that I gave at the beginning, "silent" is correct?
Could you give some example sentences with "silent" and "silence"?
Thanks a lot.

 

[Rover_KE]

Click here to read 13,482 examples of 'silent' used in sentences, then change the headword to 'silence' to read 11,453 more.

 

[Tdol]

Keep quiet or Be silent sound better to me.