Handmade elephant silver boxes from Asia. Silver is a soft metal that has been used for many thousands of years by people all over the world, for jewelery, as money, and many other things. It is called a white metal even though it looks gray. The word silver is also used to talk about this colour or shade of gray.Silver is very malleable, and ductile, which means it can be pulled into wire or hammered into thin sheets. When it is used in money or in jewelery, it is often mixed with gold or some other metal to make it harder.