# shriek
## English
### Alternative forms

* shreek (obsolete)

### Etymology

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.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ʃɹiːk/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -iːk

### Noun

shriek (plural shrieks)
* 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?
* (UK, slang) An exclamation mark.

#### Derived terms

* shriek owl

#### Translations
### Verb

shriek (third-person singular simple present shrieks, present participle shrieking, simple past and past participle shrieked)
* (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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:It was the owl that shrieked.
** 1700, [John] 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:"[O]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.
* (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.

#### Derived terms

* ashriek
* shrieking sixties

#### Translations
### Anagrams

* Ihrkes, hikers, shrike