Definition of "silken"

Come then youth, Beauty, and Blood, all ye soft powers,Whose silken flatteryes swell a few fond houres.

1646, Richard Crashaw, “Vpon Mr. Staninough’s Death”, in Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems, with Other Delights of the Muses‎, London: Humphrey Moseley, page 40

[…] love is not to be bought, in any sense of the words, its silken wings are instantly shrivelled up when any thing beside a return in kind is sought.

1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, chapter 9, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, […], published 1792

[…] in spite of the buzz in the next room, Edith had rolled herself up into a soft ball of muslin and ribbon, and silken curls, and gone off into a peaceful little after-dinner nap.

1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 1, in North and South‎

He heard the silken rustle of a dressing-gown being drawn on.

1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus, Random House, published 2010, page 37

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise,Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation,Figures pedantical; these summer-fliesHave blown me full of maggot ostentation:

c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene ii]

[…] shall a beardless boy,A cocker’d silken wanton, brave our fields […] ?

c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]

Yet though he cannot skip forth now to greetEvery fine silken painted foole we meet,He then to him with amorous smiles allures,

c. 1593–1597, J[ohn] Donne, “Satyre I”, in Poems, […] with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot, […], published 1633, page 327

Last Saturday was three Weeks, at Two, in the Afternoon, I sent out my Servant, to watch a Couple of these Silken Strollers, and keep, if possible, within Ken of them.

1724, Aaron Hill, The Plain Dealer, London: S. Richardson & A. Wilde, 1730, Volume 2, No. 81, 28 December, 1724, p. 197

[…] the Viceroy moved magnificently through India, resplendent with all the colour and dash of the vast Empire at his feet, with his superb bodyguard jangling scarlet beside his carriage, silken Indian princes bowing at his carpet, generals quivering at the salute and ceremonial salutes of thirty-one guns […]

1968, Jan Morris, chapter 10, in Pax Britannica: The Climax of Empire, London: Faber & Faber, published 2010, page 200

Or, if your sheep are of Silurian breed, / Nightly to house them dry on fern or straw, / Silk’ning their fleeces.

1757, John Dyer, The Fleece, London: R. & J. Dodsley, Book I, lines 492-494, p. 30

[…] these lights silkened her black skin:

1987, Derek Walcott, “The Light of the World”, in The Arkansas Testament‎, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 48