shrill
/ʃrɪl
/adjective
1(Of a voice or sound) high-pitched and piercing: a shrill laugh...
- Julian winced slightly at the sound of the shrill voice echoing down the halls, accompanied by thundering footsteps.
- In a statement read in court, Joan Turner said he used to let out a low whimpering sound and an occasional high-pitched shrill noise which could keep his mother awake.
- When he thought something ironic, he would let out a high-pitched shrill laugh that sounded like a hyena.
1.1 derogatory (Especially of a complaint or demand) loud and forceful: a concession to their shrill demands...
- The real show of class warfare is the threatened curtailment of charitable status for private schools and the shrill demand that universities take more state-school pupils.
- His calamitous ignorance of his system's failure, plus his reluctance to acknowledge it once was drawn to his attention, drew shrill demands for his dismissal.
- While the semaphore continues with increasingly shrill demands of ‘do deal now!’
verb [no object]
1Make a shrill noise: a piercing whistle shrilled through the night air...
- By the time the final whistle shrilled through Dr Cullen an exhibition of scoring had been given by the Kildavin-Clonegal team.
- The next day, just one minute before our alarm clock rings for gym time, my phone took a head start and shrilled loudly.
- When the phone shrilled on his desk, the tone of the woman on the other end was not a happy one.
1.1Speak or cry with a shrill voice: [with direct speech]: ‘How dare you!’ she shrilled
noun [in singular]
A shrill sound or cry: the shrill of a smoke detector filled the air...
- She heard a shrill of laughter that sounded as if it would have split a storm into two halves.
- Asha had almost reached the mansion when she heard the screeching sound, sounding like a death shrill to her ears.
- I heard a mighty shrill as I stepped into the room.
Derivatives
shrillness
/ noun ...- Ruthless editing would have crafted sharp-edged form out of the three hours of exhausting overabundance, infused subtlety into unrelieved shrillness.
- This is an increasingly complicated and vital issue, but when handled with such shrillness and heavy-handed irony, the message is soon lost.
- The shrillness of our ideological debates, the emotional shallowness, the vulgarity of our culture, would have appalled him.
shrilly
/ adverb ...- Patricia's only skills lie in shrilly harping on about the emotive issues of the day, and dressing up like she should have dressed down.
- Abu Josef's phone suddenly rang shrilly and Abu Josef ran to pick it up.
- Screams of agony echoed shrilly above the sounds of battle.
Origin
late Middle English: of Germanic origin; related to Low German schrell 'sharp in tone or taste'.
Rhymes
- NASD
- NASDAQ
- naseberry
- Naseby, Battle of
- nasella
- Nash equilibrium
- nasher
- rattlepod
- rattleproof
- rattleproofing
- rattler
- rattler-jumper
- rattler-jumping
- rattle sabres
- Rattle, Sir Simon
- rattle-skull
- rattlesnake
- rattlesnake fern
- rattlesnake grass
- rattlesnake herb
- rattlesnake leaf
- rattlesnake master
- rattlesnake orchid
- rattlesnake plantain
- rattlesnake root