Question

What is the Latin name of silver $?$ What is its symbol $?$

Answer 1

Hint: Silver is a metal and belongs to the d block. It is a transition metal. Symbols are used to represent atoms in the periodic table. These are the short forms of the element name. It can be written as a single letter or two letters. The first letter will always be a capital letter and the second letter will be a small letter.

Complete answer:
Silver is a chemical element represented in the periodic table. The Latin word for silver is “argentum” which means lustrous or shining. Thus, the chemical symbol of silver is Ag. Silver is a naturally occurring element and has all the characteristics of metals. It is lustrous, white in colour, malleable, ductile and is a best conductor of heat and electricity. Melting and boiling points of silver are also high and can be used in making alloys.
It is placed in group $11$ and period $5$ of the periodic table with atomic number $47$ . Its electronic configuration is $[Kr]5s^{1}4d^{10}$ . The atomic mass of a silver atom is $107u$ . Therefore, the chemical representation of silver becomes ${}_{47}^{107}Ag$ .
Silver is a precious metal and is used to make jewellery and utensils. It is also used in dentistry.

Note:
Symbols are actually the abbreviated names of elements. Each element must have a unique symbol. Therefore scientists adopted different conventions to assign symbols to elements. In certain cases, the first letter or the first two letters of the element name is taken. For many elements like silver, the symbols have been derived from their Latin word. Few examples are : Iron (Fe-Ferrum), Sodium(Na-Natrium), Mercury(Hg- Hydrargyrum), Gold(Au-Aurum), Lead(Pb-Plumbum).