shriek

• shreek (obsolete)

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.

• IPA^(key): /ʃɹiːk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːk

shriek (plural shrieks)

1. A sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.
   • 1697, Virgil, “The Seventh Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     Shrieks, clamours, murmurs, fill the frighted town.

   • 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 5, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June, →OCLC:

     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.

• shriek owl

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.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 95:

     Feebly ſhe ſhriekt, but ſo feebly indeed / That Britomart heard not the ſhrilling ſound.

   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     It was the owl that shrieked.

   • 1700, Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; , London: Jacob Tonson, , →OCLC:

     At this she shriek'd aloud; the mournful train / Echoed her grief.

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 286:

     "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.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 33:

     The ghostly owl, shrieking his baleful note.

   • 1817, Thomas Moore, Lalla-Rookh:

     She shrieked his name to the dark woods.

• ashriek
• shrieking sixties

• Ihrkes, hikers, shrike