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Shrill
Definitions
- 1 High-pitched and piercing.
"The woods rang with shrill cries of the birds."
- 2 Having a shrill voice.
""It is Miss Halliday!" cried the house-maid, as she opened the door. "And oh my," she added, looking back into the hall with a sorrowful face, "how bad she do look!" [...] "Oh, don't she look white!" cried a shrill girl with a baby in her arms."
- 3 Sharp or keen to the senses.
"Rather than shrill, feisty whites tasting of grass, green beans, gooseberry or pipi de chat (the somehow more polite French term for cat's pee), [Didier] Dagueneau's Sauvignons were statuesque, beautifully balanced wines with flavors reminiscent of citrus zests, apricot, fig, passion fruit and minerals."
- 4 Fierce, loud, strident. derogatory, especially, figuratively
"The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife, shrill, vehement, and fluent."
- 1 of colors that are bright and gaudy wordnet
- 2 being sharply insistent on being heard wordnet
- 3 having or emitting a high-pitched and sharp tone or tones wordnet
- 1 A shrill sound.
"[W]hen at laſt / I heard a voyce, which loudly to me called, / That with ſuddein ſhrill I was appalled."
- 1 To make a shrill noise.
"And all wee dwell in deadly night, / O heauie herſe. / Breake we our pipes, that ſhrild as lowde as Larke, / O carefull verſe."
- 2 utter a shrill cry wordnet
Etymology
From Late Middle English schrille, shirle, shrille (“of a sound: high-pitched, piercing; producing such a sound”), possibly from the earlier shil, schille (“loud, resounding; high-pitched”), from Old English scill (“sonorous sounding”), of Germanic origin and probably ultimately imitative. The r in the word was introduced by analogy to Middle English skrīke, skrīken, scrēmen, possibly to avoid confusion with non-Anglian forms of schelle (modern English shell) where Old English scill (“sonorous sounding”) and scill (“shell”) existed. The word is cognate with Icelandic skella (“crash, bang, slam”), Low German schrell (“sharp in taste or tone”).
From Late Middle English schrille, shirle, shrille (“of a sound: high-pitched, piercing; producing such a sound”), possibly from the earlier shil, schille (“loud, resounding; high-pitched”), from Old English scill (“sonorous sounding”), of Germanic origin and probably ultimately imitative. The r in the word was introduced by analogy to Middle English skrīke, skrīken, scrēmen, possibly to avoid confusion with non-Anglian forms of schelle (modern English shell) where Old English scill (“sonorous sounding”) and scill (“shell”) existed. The word is cognate with Icelandic skella (“crash, bang, slam”), Low German schrell (“sharp in taste or tone”).
From Late Middle English schrille, shirle, shrille (“of a sound: high-pitched, piercing; producing such a sound”), possibly from the earlier shil, schille (“loud, resounding; high-pitched”), from Old English scill (“sonorous sounding”), of Germanic origin and probably ultimately imitative. The r in the word was introduced by analogy to Middle English skrīke, skrīken, scrēmen, possibly to avoid confusion with non-Anglian forms of schelle (modern English shell) where Old English scill (“sonorous sounding”) and scill (“shell”) existed. The word is cognate with Icelandic skella (“crash, bang, slam”), Low German schrell (“sharp in taste or tone”).
See also for "shrill"
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