Outcry

noun, verb

noun, verb ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A loud cry or uproar. countable, uncountable

    "His appearance was greeted with an outcry of jeering."

  2. 2
    a loud utterance; often in protest or opposition wordnet
  3. 3
    A strong protest. countable, figuratively, uncountable

    "The proposal was met with a public outcry."

  4. 4
    An auction. India, archaic, countable, uncountable

    "to send goods to an outcry"

Verb
  1. 1
    To cry out. intransitive

    "I think any man who outcries against the power of the government in Germany soon ceases to cry at all, because he is crushed."

  2. 2
    utter aloud; often with surprise, horror, or joy wordnet
  3. 3
    To cry louder than. transitive

    "[…] outcrying the clacking of train wheels, the shrill of the whistle […]"

  4. 4
    shout louder than wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
cryadoauctionauction blockauction salebawl

Example

More examples

"The sinking of the RMS Lusitania caused an international outcry."

Etymology

From Middle English outcry, outcri, outcrye, equivalent to out- + cry. The verb is from Middle English outcrien.

Related phrases

open outcrycry out

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.