A little key - silvery (5)

I believe the answer is:

white

'silvery' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'a little key' is the wordplay.
'a little' becomes 'whit' (I've seen this before).
'key' becomes 'e' (musical key).
'whit'+'e'='WHITE'

(Other definitions for white that I've seen before include "murderer" , "Colourless" , "wine" , "Achromatic colour" , "- Christmas, famous song" .)

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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