shriek
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ʃɹiːk/
Noun

shriek (plural shrieks)

  1. A sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry such as is caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.
    • Shrieks, clamours, murmurs, fill the frighted town.
    • 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 5:
      Sabor, the lioness, was a wise hunter. To one less wise the wild alarm of her fierce cry as she sprang would have seemed a foolish thing, for could she not more surely have fallen upon her victims had she but quietly leaped without that loud shriek?
  2. (UK, slang) An exclamation mark.
Translations Verb

shriek (shrieks, present participle shrieking; 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, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene ii]:
      It was the owl that shrieked.
    • At this she shrieked aloud; the mournful train / Echoed her grief.
  2. (transitive) To utter sharply and shrilly; to utter in or with a shriek or shrieks.
    • The ghostly owl, shrieking his baleful note.
    • She shrieked his name to the dark woods.
Translations Translations


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