In the English language, almost every letter can be a 'silent' letter. For a technical discussion of the different forms of silent letter, see the page on wikipedia. Here, we try to give an example for each letter possible.
According to Webster's dictionary, in the US a variant pronunciation of "fivepence" can be "fi'pence", omitting the 'v'. The letter 'v' can also be silent in placenames: for example, I'm told that Milngavie in Glasgow is pronounced as "Mill Guy".
We would welcome suggestions for the letter v, and better examples for some of those included (such as f). Please send them to richard@onetrickwords.com. As elsewhere on this site, words of foreign origin are considered part of the English language if they are included in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Some words with multiple silent letters include:
Fewer letters can be double than can be silent:
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| Heteronyms | Silent letters | |
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