From Late Middle English schrille, shirle, shrille, possibly from the earlier shil, schille, from Old English scill, of Germanic origin.

The word is cognate with Icelandic skella, Low German schrell.

• (RP, America) IPA: /ʃɹɪl/

shrill (comparative shriller, superlative shrillest)

1. High-pitched and piercing.

   The woods rang with shrill cries of the birds.

   • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, prologue], page 77 ↗, column 1:

     Suppoſe, that you haue ſeene / The well-appointed King at Douer Peer, / Embarke his Royaltie: and his braue Fleet, / With ſilken Streamers, the young Phebus fayning; / [...] Heare the ſhrill Whiſtle, which doth order giue / To ſounds confus'd.

   • 1812, Lord Byron, “Canto I”, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: Printed for John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC ↗, stanza XIII.4, page 11 ↗:

     Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, / I fear not wave nor wind; / Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I / Am sorrowful in mind; [...]

   • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], chapter VI, in Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume III, London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC ↗, [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=emu.010001278703;view=1up;seq=126 page 118]:

     But I discovered no trace of him, and was beginning to conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces; when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream.

2. Having a shrill voice.
3. Sharp or keen to the senses.
4. (figuratively, derogatory, especially of a complaint or demand) Fierce, loud, strident.

• French: strident
• German: schrill
• Italian: stridulo, stridore, stridio, stridente, penetrante, squillante
• Portuguese: estridente, estrídulo
• Russian: пронзи́тельный
• Spanish: estridente

• French: criard
• Italian: stridula

• German: scharf
• Italian: stridente, acuto
• Portuguese: agudo

• Italian: isterico

shrill (shrills, present participle shrilling; simple past and past participle shrilled)

1. To make a shrill noise.
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Nouember. Ægloga Vndecima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC ↗, folio 45, recto ↗:

     And all wee dwell in deadly night, / O heauie herſe. / Breake we our pipes, that ſhrild as lowde as Larke, / O carefull verſe.

   • c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. […] (First Quarto), London: […] G[eorge] Eld for R[ichard] Bonian and H[enry] Walley, […], published 1609, →OCLC ↗, [Act V, scene iii]:

     Harke how Troy roares, how Hecuba cries out, / How poore Andromache ſhrils her dolours foorth, / Behold deſtruction, frenzie, and amazement, / Like witleſſe antiques one another meete, / And all crie Hector, Hectors dead, O Hector.

   • 1714, J[ohn] Gay, “Saturday; or, The Flights”, in The Shepherd’s Week. In Six Pastorals, London: […] R. Burleigh […], →OCLC ↗, page 56 ↗, lines 47–50:

     Not ballad-ſinger plac'd above the croud, / Sings with a note ſo ſhrilling ſweet and loud, / Nor pariſh clerk who calls the pſalm ſo clear, / Like Bowzybeus ſooths th' attentive ear.

     An adjectival use.

   • 1791, Homer, W[illiam] Cowper, transl., “[The Iliad.] Book XVII.”, in The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC ↗, page 481 ↗, lines 913–918:

     They, as a cloud of ſtarlings or of daws / Fly ſcreaming ſhrill, warn'd timely of the kite / Or hawk, devourers of the ſmaller kinds, / So they ſhrill—clamouring toward the fleet, / Haſted before Æneas and the might / Of Hector, nor the battle heeded more.

   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, page 13 ↗:

     [F]rom them rose / A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, / And, as it were one voice, an agony / Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills / All night in a waste land, where no one comes, / Or hath come, since the making of the world.

   • 1880 November 11, Lew[is] Wallace, chapter IV, in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC ↗, book fourth, page 195 ↗:

     [H]e paused, while his hands clutched, and his voice shrilled with passion— [...]

• Italian: stridere
• Russian: визжать

shrill (plural shrills)

1. A shrill sound.
   • 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “The Ruines of Time ↗”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC ↗, part 6:

     [W]hen at laſt / I heard a voyce, which loudly to me called, / That with ſuddein ſhrill I was appalled.