shrill
Americanadjective
-
shriller,
comparative
-
shrillest
superlative
-
high-pitched and piercing in sound quality.
a shrill cry.
-
producing such a sound.
-
full of or characterized by such a sound.
shrill music.
-
betraying some strong emotion or attitude in an exaggerated amount, as antagonism or defensiveness.
-
marked by great intensity; keen.
the shrill, incandescent light of the exploding bomb.
verb (used with or without object)
-
shrills,
present (3rd person singular)
-
shrilled,
past participle, past
-
shrilling
present participle
noun
adverb
adjective
-
sharp and high-pitched in quality
-
emitting a sharp high-pitched sound
verb
-
to utter (words, sounds, etc) in a shrill tone
-
rare (tr) to cause to produce a shrill sound
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
shrillsimple
-
shrillssimple
-
have shrilledperfect
-
has shrilledperfect
-
am shrillingprogressive
-
are shrillingprogressive
-
is shrillingprogressive
-
have been shrillingperfect progressive
-
has been shrillingperfect progressive
Past
-
shrilledsimple
-
had shrilledperfect
-
was shrillingprogressive
-
were shrillingprogressive
-
had been shrillingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of shrill
1300–50; Middle English shrille (adj., v.); akin to Old English scrallettan to sound loudly; cognate with German schrill (adj.), schrillen (v.); compare Old Norse skrīll rabble
Explanation
A shrill sound is high pitched and sharp, like the squeak of the mouse in your cupboard or the sound of your “eek” when you hear it. Closer to a shriek than a trill, a shrill tone is one that might make you cover your ears, usually because the tone is so high and sharp. A high pitched voice, a classroom of excited first graders, or the sound of chalk scraping the board can all be shrill, as can a color or light that looks as sharp and intense as a shrill tone sounds.
Vocabulary lists containing shrill
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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List 5
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"Easter, 1916" by W.B. Yeats
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It is home to the rare broad-leaved cudweed and shrill carder bumblebee and the Essex Wildlife Trust fears "incredibly rare" habitats would be "destroyed".
From BBC ● Sep. 15, 2026
Mr. Hernández, a “Saturday Night Live” cast member, is particularly shrill as the best man who can’t forgive his pal for getting married.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
“My grandmother was a sharecropper in Arkansas, and I know that this is the same thing,” a man shouts at one point as whistles shrill and a handheld siren wails.
From Slate ● Feb. 11, 2026
Lopez handed one to Juan Ballena, who immediately used it — a shrill, reedy blast soon answered by others.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 9, 2025
They were playing the riau-riau music, the pipes shrill and the drums pounding, and behind them came the men and boys dancing.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
Ethan Hawke registers in a much lower key, which counterbalances Amanda’s shriller moments.
From Salon ● Dec. 8, 2023
"We are seeing the rhetoric on topics like migration get shriller," said Stefan Marschall, political scientist at the University of Duesseldorf.
From Reuters ● Jun. 7, 2023
Three decades on, the tone has become shriller.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2022
Where the EP gave it Plant’s rich tenor core, the album leaves him shriller and scratchier, closer to Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe or Geddy Lee of Rush.
From New York Times ● Oct. 17, 2018
The boar had a similar squeal, but what we were hearing now seemed higher pitched, shriller, almost like... like if the boar had an angry girlfriend.
From "The Last Olympian" by Rick Riordan
His half-sublimated wranglings with race are more complex and fraught than either his shrillest detractors or his most fawning defenders would have us believe.
From Salon ● May 30, 2012
Pick: Giants Jets at Bills Line: Jets by 5 1/2 The Jets have joined the Chargers and the Cowboys as one of the league’s shrillest teams.
From New York Times ● Oct. 1, 2010
“It’s a big test for the leadership. We cannot listen to the loudest, shrillest voices in our party,” said Rep. Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican who represents the Philadelphia suburbs.
From Washington Post
The Reagan Administration heeded one of the shrillest last week by announcing voluntary restraints on steel imports.
From Time Magazine Archive
A GOOSE, affected, empty, vain, The shrillest of the cackling train, With proud and elevated crest, Precedence claim’d above the rest.
From Moores Fables for the Female Sex by Edward Caldwell Moore
Binoche is superbly entertaining as she first trills and shrills on the ways of proper womanhood, and then starts to relish the taste of new freedoms, like wearing trousers.
From New York Times ● May 5, 2023
Now his dog barks, the phone shrills and the laughter of chorus girls taunts him; yet he can’t make a sound.
From Time ● Dec. 27, 2011
As Olivier pauses, the cobwebbed telephone shrills like a police siren in the silence; scene and story reach their star-shell denouement.
From Time Magazine Archive
But when some world-shaking event takes place, La Prensa's horn shrills and a Prensa office boy trots downtown to pay the fine before its echo has died away.
From Time Magazine Archive
When Aunty Ifeoma woke me up, the room was dim and the shrills of the night crickets were dying away.
From "Purple Hibiscus" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
"Prepare for a hard landing," Deutsche Bank shrilled in a Wednesday report.
From Reuters ● Apr. 21, 2022
Magnets, magnets! shrilled my landlady, when I got back from weeks of doing what I was doing.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 21, 2019
"Oh, won't somebody please think of the style?" they shrilled, arms out-stretched and tears in their eyes.
From The Guardian ● Dec. 16, 2012
The biometer shrilled again: temperature 102.5 and climbing.
From Nature ● Jun. 29, 2011
Hornet pressed a button on the telephone and Esther's voice shrilled through Victor's office.
From "The Thief Lord" by Cornelia Funke
A feeling like alarm bells shrilling in an empty building, no one to turn the alarm off, no one to respond.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2020
Across social media, people are shrilling with outrage over the noise.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 2, 2020
Anyone who has thrilled to the shrilling of cicadas or marvelled at the bizarre behaviour of praying mantises will be entranced by this homage to the class Insecta.
From Nature ● Dec. 4, 2018
On the hill, a breeze stirred the tall cypresses; swallows darted, shrilling, in the great bowl of light below them.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 10, 2018
The heavy dragon marched on its thousands of feet, and now above the drums came the shrilling of the fifes.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
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