silo

1 of 2

noun

si·​lo ˈsī-(ˌ)lō 

plural silos

1

: a trench, pit, or especially a tall cylinder (as of wood or concrete) usually sealed to exclude air and used for making and storing silage

2

a

: a deep bin for storing material (such as coal)

b

: an underground structure for housing a guided missile

These are weapons that can hit military targets, such as missile silos and headquarters, swiftly and accurately …

—Leslie H. Gelb

3

: an isolated grouping, department, etc., that functions apart from others especially in a way seen as hindering communication and cooperation

Big, complex companies are typically structured so that decision making is separated according to function, geography and product. That naturally creates silos.

—John H. Howard

Examples of silos in blue-chip firms abound: Sony once had two separate divisions working on creating the same electrical plug without anyone realizing it.

—Rana Foroohar

To break down silos individual officials need a stronger sense of belonging to a bigger whole, with norms and expectations spanning all departments and agencies.

—David Walker

Moorhouse came to the paper determined to break down its "silos"—MBA-speak for self-contained departments that don't have anything to do with other departments in a business.

—Mark Fitzgerald

Illustration of silo

• silo 1

silo

2 of 2

verb

siloed; siloing; siloes

transitive verb

1

: to place or store (material, such as grain) in a silo

2

: to isolate (someone or something, such as a grouping or department) in a way that hinders communication and cooperation with others : to place (someone or something) in an isolated silo (see silo entry 1 sense 3)

One step banks can take to balance efforts, [Emmett] Higdon suggested, is to stop siloing mobile and online banking development efforts and channels.

—Nathan DiCamillo

Examples of silo in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

In this case, that hodgepodge also has thematic resonance, because so much of the season is about characters being in their own silos, completely unable to imagine what anyone else’s existence is like. —Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 21 Nov. 2023

In January of 2004, his body was found inside of an unused grain silo. —Nicolás Viñuela, NBC News, 19 Nov. 2023

Although Chinese experts regard current U.S. missile defense as limited, their long-standing concerns about these systems intensified in the years before Beijing began building the new silo fields. —M. Taylor Fravel, Foreign Affairs, 10 Nov. 2023

For years wind-energy companies had been looking to develop projects near missile silo farms in Nebraska. —Abe Streep, Scientific American, 10 Nov. 2023

The attacks have damaged grain silos and infrastructure both at Ukraine’s sea ports and its Danube river ports, which provide an important alternative route for exports and serve no military purpose. —Clare Sebastian, CNN, 5 Oct. 2023

And 31% say the data is owned by a separate function and shared seamlessly between marketing and finance, while 17% say it’s owned in silos and not shared across functions. —Bysheryl Estrada, Fortune, 22 Sep. 2023

In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian ports and grain silos on the banks of the River Danube, which runs along the Romanian-Ukrainian border before flowing into the Black Sea. —Amar Nadhir, Washington Post, 6 Sep. 2023

Oftentimes, the communities are severed in the dance world, working in their own silos. —Steven Vargas, Los Angeles Times, 1 Nov. 2023

Verb

Now Meta and its peers have a legal basis to keep going in Europe without having to silo off their operations there. —Bydavid Meyer, Fortune, 10 July 2023

Reactive content marketers silo their content efforts within their department. —Joel Goobich, Forbes, 2 Mar. 2021

Instead politically polarized Google users tend to silo themselves by clicking on links to partisan news sites. —Joanna Thompson, Scientific American, 24 May 2023

Currently, legacy software tends to silo data by product and business segments, utilize batch files rather than real-time data access and is inherently difficult to integrate with other solutions due to excess customization requiring one-to-one integration rather than one-to-many. —Mike Sekits, Forbes, 17 Mar. 2023

Just as important, consumers don’t silo their digital and IRL selves, so marketers shouldn’t either. —Kris Persons, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2022

In the planned specification, Golden shares, every Qi2 transmitter will require authentication, which suggests that Apple, Samsung and other manufacturers could tell their devices to refuse to charge from non-certified products, or perhaps even silo things further. —Sean Hollister, The Verge, 4 Jan. 2023

Cfius intervened earlier this year to compel TuSimple to silo much of its U.S. data and tech from its own Chinese subsidiary, according to a regulatory filing and former employees. —Heather Somerville, WSJ, 30 Oct. 2022

The situation underscores the challenge of designing flexible and usable web applications that also silo and limit access to high-value data like passwords. —Wired, 7 Aug. 2022

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Word History

Etymology

Noun

Spanish

First Known Use

Noun

1856, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

1981, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

silo

noun

si·​lo ˈsī-lō 

plural silos

1

: a trench, pit, or especially a tall cylinder (as of wood or concrete) used for making and storing silage

2

: an underground structure for housing a missile