shrill
/ʃɹɪl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.88 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
High-pitched and piercing.
noun
A shrill sound.
Example Sentences
- "The woods rang with shrill cries of the birds."
- "Suppoſe, that you haue ſeene / The well-appointed King at Douer Peer, / Embarke his Royaltie: and his braue Fleet, / With ſilken Streamers, the young Phebus fayning; / […] Heare the ſhrill Whiſtle, which doth order giue / To ſounds confus'd."
- "Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high, / I fear not wave nor wind; / Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I / Am sorrowful in mind; […]"
- "But I discovered no trace of him, and was beginning to conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the execution of his menaces; when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful scream."
- ""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."
- "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."
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 sċill (“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 sċill (“sonorous sounding”) and sċill (“shell”) existed. The word is cognate with Icelandic skella (“crash, bang, slam”), Low German schrell (“sharp in taste or tone”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: schrille, sċill
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ʃɹɪl/
- British English: /ʃɹɪl/