shriek
/ʃɹiːk/
shriek noun: a sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.
Noun
shriek (plural shrieks)
- A sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.
- Shrieks, clamours, murmurs, fill the frighted town.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
- 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?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[lbert]...
- An exclamation mark.
Verb
shriek (third-person singular simple present shrieks, present participle shrieking, simple past and past participle shrieked)
- 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.
- Feebly ſhe ſhriekt, but ſo feebly indeed / That Britomart heard not the ſhrilling ſound.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 95
- It was the owl that shrieked.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...
- To utter sharply and shrilly; to utter in or with a shriek or shrieks.
- The ghostly owl, shrieking his baleful note.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 33
- She shrieked his name to the dark woods.1817, Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh […] , London: Longman […]
shriek meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
shriek in Hindi
- shriek, scream, roar; trumpet
- चिंघाड़ ciṅghāṛ
shriek in Tamil
- வீறிட்ட, கத்தல், கூப்பிடு
shriek in Marathi
- a sharp, shrill outcry or scream
- किंकाळी kiṅkāḷī
- to utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry
- किंकाळी मारणे kiṅkāḷī mārṇe, किंकाळी फोडाणे kiṅkāḷī phoḍāṇe
shriek in Urdu
- a sharp, shrill outcry or scream
- چیخ cīx
- to utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry
- چیخنا cīxnā
More languagesFewer languages
- shriek in Bengali
- তীক্ষ্ণ চিৎকার করা
- shriek in Malayalam
- കീച്ചിടുക, കൂകിവിളിക്കുക, നിലവിളിക്കുക, കൂവിടുക
- shriek in Kannada
- ಕಿರುಚು, ಅರಚು
- shriek in Punjabi
- کوک kūk, کرلانا kurlāṇā
- shriek in Sanskrit
- क्रोश krośa
- shriek in Arabic
- زَعَقَ zaʕaqa, صَرَخَ ṣaraḵa
- shriek in Persian
- جیغ jiġ, جیغ زدن jǐq zadan
- shriek in Vietnamese
- rít
Examples of shriek in a sentence
- At this she shriek'd aloud; the mournful train / Echoed her grief.1700, [John] Dryden, “Palamon and Arcite: Or, The Knight’s Tale. In Three Books.”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob...
- "[O]h, yes! the loon does shriek dreadfully - particularly when there's fine rain[.]"1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 286:
- 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.1954 March, W. A. Tuplin, “Recollections of the Wirral Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 169:
Synonyms of shriek
Forms of shriek
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | shrieks |
| alternative form (obsolete) | shreek |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | shrieks |
| present participle | shrieking |
| past participle | shrieked |
| past | shrieked |
Origin of shriek
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.
Words formed from shriek
Phrases with shriek
Words that rhyme with shriek
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- leak
- seek
- bespeak
- pique
- tweak
- reek
- sleek
- geek
- peek
- squeak
- week
- wreak
- boutique
- clique
- creek
- forspeak
- gleek
- unique
- bleak
- cacique
- creak
- critique
- deke
- eek
- eke
- fleak
- on fleek
- respeak
- Tajik
- teak
- technique
- tongue-in-chic
- chic
- cleek
- desqueak
- leek
- malik
- meek
- midweek
- misspeak
- physique
- pratique
- speke
- streek
- Zeke
- -speak
- Adam's Peak
- advertique
Questions about shriek
- What does shriek mean?
- Shriek means a sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.
- What is shriek in Hindi?
- Shriek in Hindi is चिंघाड़ (ciṅghāṛ). See Shriek meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use shriek in a sentence?
- At this she shriek'd aloud; the mournful train / Echoed her grief.
- What part of speech is shriek?
- Shriek can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce shriek?
- Shriek is pronounced /ʃɹiːk/.
- What is the plural of shriek?
- The plural of shriek is shrieks.
Words near shriek in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shriek (page history and authors); चिंघाड़ (Hindi) (page history and authors); shriek (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shriek (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); shriek (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); shriek (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); کرلانا (Punjabi) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-shriek.ogg.
Cite this entry: “shriek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shriek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.