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Shriek   /ʃrik/   Listen
noun
Shriek  n.  A sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry such as is caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like. "Shrieks, clamors, murmurs, fill the frighted town."
Shriek owl. (Zool.)
(a)
The screech owl.
(b)
The swift; so called from its cry.



verb
Shriek  v. t.  To utter sharply and shrilly; to utter in or with a shriek or shrieks. "On top whereof aye dwelt the ghostly owl, Shrieking his baleful note." "She shrieked his name To the dark woods."



Shriek  v. i.  (past & past part. shrieked; pres. part. shrieking)  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. "It was the owl that shrieked." "At this she shrieked aloud; the mournful train Echoed her grief."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shriek" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the act of putting a shaft to her bosom, in order to die upon it, when her arm was arrested by a mighty grasp; and turning round, she beheld with a shriek the beloved face of him who had caused the ruin of her and hers. She closed her disdainful eyes and fainted away. Rinaldo supported her; he loosened her girdle; he bathed her bosom and her eyelids with his tears. Coming at length to ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... start and gasp for breath; I would shriek, but cannot, for a heavy hand seems to close my mouth, and an immense weight presses me down. I struggle violently with this unseen Power—little by little I gain the advantage. One effort more! I ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... Providence soon terminated her insupportable suspense. While we were driving through Hyde Park, we were forcibly stopped to permit, among the throng, the passage of a splendid equipage. The approaching carriage was likewise an open one. Juliet glanced at the inmates, and uttering a wild piercing shriek, fainted in my arms. I looked, and saw her quondam husband! He was decked in the magnificent insignia of ROYALTY. Nobles were bowing, high-born ladies smiling, and the multitude shouted, 'There comes his royal highness, the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... With a piercing shriek, that cut like a gash through the uproar of the ambulance engines, a sanitary train, the seventh since midnight, came into the station, and so smoothly did it run by, its floors on a level with the main floor, that it seemed an illusion, like a stage train. On the platform stood ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... each other in the naked breadth of the ocean, nay, sometimes even touch, in the dark, with a crack of timbers, a gurgling of water, a cry of startled sleepers,—a cry mysteriously echoed in warning dreams, as the wife of some Gloucester fisherman, some coasting skipper, wakes with a shriek, calls the name of her husband, and sinks back to uneasy slumbers upon her lonely ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various


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