silver lining

noun

a sign of hope in an unfortunate or gloomy situation; a bright prospect:

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Origin

1870-75

Examples from the web for silver lining

The holder has a zip-up side, zipper pocket, a pocket made with netting and an insulated silver lining.
There is a silver lining to this barbaric cloud hanging over the admission process.
But it turns out that the radioactive cloud may have a silver lining.
The silver lining is that almost all of this is totally skippable.
And maybe that's the silver lining in the nuclear cloud.
In my view, there's a real silver lining to being laid low with a cold.
If this grisly tale of body-snatching and indentured servitude seems depressing, there is a silver lining.
But the real silver lining to the steepening yield curve is the effect on the banking industry.
But there may be a silver lining yet to take shape along the weakened seams of this all-but-empty, high-fashion clutch.
So the silver lining in a divorce is retirement will rock as long as you stay free of another marriage.

British Dictionary definitions for silver lining

silver lining

noun

a comforting or hopeful aspect of an otherwise desperate or unhappy situation (esp in the phrase every cloud has a silver lining)

Word Origin and History for silver lining

a "bright side" which proverbially accompanies even the darkest trouble; by 1843, apparently from oft-quoted lines from Milton's "Comus," where the silver lining is the light of the moon shining from behind the cloud.

Was I deceived? or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?
I did not err, there does a sable cloud,
Turn out her silver lining on the night
And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

To which Thomas Warton added the commentary: "When all succour ſeems to be lost, Heaven unexpectedly presents the ſilver lining oſ a ſable cloud to the virtuous."

Idioms and Phrases with silver lining

silver lining

An element of hope or a redeeming quality in an otherwise bad situation, as in The rally had a disappointing turnout, but the silver lining was that those who came pledged a great deal of money. This metaphoric term is a shortening of Every cloud has a silver lining, in turn derived from John Milton's Comus (1634): “A sable cloud turns forth its silver lining on the night.”