shrill
Plural: shrills
Verb
Verb Forms: shrill, shrilling, shrills
- To utter a shrill sound.
- utter a shrill cry
- To make a shrill noise.
Adjective Satellite
- having or emitting a high-pitched and sharp tone or tones
- "a shrill whistle"
- "a shrill gaiety"
- being sharply insistent on being heard
- "shrill criticism"
- of colors that are bright and gaudy
- "a shrill turquoise"
Adj
- High-pitched and piercing.
- Having a shrill voice.
- Sharp or keen to the senses.
- Fierce, loud, strident.
Noun
- A shrill sound.
Adjective
- Having a high-pitched and piercing sound quality.
Examples
- The buzzer’s SHRILL sound indicated his time was up for playing a word.
- The referee might SHRILL if a player was caught cheating with a dictionary.
- The woods rang with shrill cries of the birds.
Origin / 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”).
Scrabble Score: 9
shrill: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordshrill: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
shrill: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary