Word.ws English Dictionary

skrike

/skɹaɪk/

skrike verb: to cry, sob, cry out or yell; to scream.

Verb

skrike (third-person singular simple present skrikes, present participle skriking, simple past and past participle skriked)

  1. (UK, regional) To cry, sob, cry out or yell; to scream.
    • The yells and yammering, croaking, jibbering and jabbering; howls, growls and curses; shrieking and skriking, that followed were beyond description.1937, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
    • It's not as if you're skriking brats.1973, Alan Garner, Red Shift

Noun

skrike (plural skrikes)

  1. (UK, regional) A cry or scream.
    • c 1573, attested by J. Raine
      at what tyme the said Herrison wyfe gave a skrike.
    • Aw gav a skrike.1824, Allan's Tynside Songs, page 182
  2. (UK, dialectal) The mistle thrush.

Forms of skrike

Verb
third-person singular presentskrikes
present participleskriking
past participleskriked
pastskriked
Noun
pluralskrikes

Origin of skrike

From Middle English skriken, a borrowing from Old Norse skríkja (“to scream”) (compare Old English sċrīċ, sċrēċ > English shriek/screech), literally "bird with a shrill call," referring to a thrush, possibly imitative of its call. Attested from c 1573.

From Middle English skrike, scryke (also skryche, schryke, shryke). Cognate with Old Frisian skrichte, Middle Low German schrichte.

Questions about skrike

What does skrike mean?
Skrike means to cry, sob, cry out or yell; to scream.
What part of speech is skrike?
Skrike can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce skrike?
Skrike is pronounced /skɹaɪk/.
What is the past tense of skrike?
The past tense of skrike is skriked.

Words near skrike in the dictionary

  1. skrieghs
  2. skriek
  3. skrieks
  4. skries
  5. skrik
  6. skrike
  7. skriked
  8. skrikes
  9. skriking
  10. skriks
  11. skrill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: skrike (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-skrike.wav.

Cite this entry: “skrike.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/skrike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.