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:
When a shrill roar cut across the train yard a few seconds later, Bartlett promptly broke into tears.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 21, 2026
Within a few minutes, we’d hear the soft bubbling of everything cooking together, followed by a shrill whistle, letting us know that it was time to eat.
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2026
In her best quotable moments, she seamlessly infuses her sometimes shrill timbre with a dash of Southern drawl.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 25, 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
There was an earsplitting shriek, so shrill several beastkeepers dropped to their knees at the sound of it.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
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
Over this period, the political discourse also became shriller.
From BBC ● Nov. 2, 2017
The tone of public debate in Germany has become shriller over the past two years with the influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants.
From Time ● Jan. 1, 2017
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
It was over a mix-up right in his own yard that Butch was shrillest and worst behaved.
From Time Magazine Archive
The shrillest and angriest among them was that of Reb Jankiel, who abused all the members of the family one after the other, who answered either angrily or quietly according to their different characters.
From An Obscure Apostle A Dramatic Story by C. S. de Soissons
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
The fox shrills for freedom from its cage, where it is held because of the value of its fur.
From Time Magazine Archive
But what Broadway saw last week was a story which, though it lacks tremolo, shrills along as vibrant and masculine as a trumpet call.
From Time Magazine Archive
Five days later, a newscaster shrills that Paris has fallen to the Germans, and the German people are overjoyed to see the Nazi flag hoisted over France.
From "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
"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
The biometer shrilled again: temperature 102.5 and climbing.
From Nature ● Jun. 29, 2011
"We love you Oxford, we do!" the children shrilled.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 22, 2010
“Yii!” shrilled Rita, but no words came out.
From "The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm" by Nancy Farmer
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
Chase called, excitement and cold shrilling his voice.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
