shriek - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From obsolete shrick (1567), shreke, variants of earlier screak, skricke (before 1500), from Middle English scrycke, from a North Germanic/Scandinavian language (compare Swedish skrika, Danish skrige, Icelandic skríkja), from Proto-Germanic *skrīkijaną, *skrik- (compare English screech). More at screech.

shriek (plural shrieks)

  1. A sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.
  2. (UK, slang) An exclamation mark.

a sharp, shrill outcry or scream

shriek (third-person singular simple present shrieks, present participle shrieking, simple past and past participle shrieked)

  1. (intransitive) To utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry, as do some birds and beasts; to scream, as in a sudden fright, in horror or anguish.
    • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:
      It was the owl that shrieked.
    • 1886, Peter Christen Asbj&oslash￵rnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 286:
      "[O]h, yes! the loon does shriek dreadfully - particularly when there's fine rain[.]"
    • 1954 March, W. A. Tuplin, “Recollections of the Wirral Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 169:
      In winter the place was deserted and, with cold damp wind from the sea shrieking in the telegraph wires, the general feeling could be one of desolation.
  2. (transitive) To utter sharply and shrilly; to utter in or with a shriek or shrieks.

to utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry