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:
A shrill chuckle at the top of his throat, it quickly becomes a belly laugh, and he’s got some belly, so it’s a big noise.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
"I heard a girl behind me… a shrill shriek. I turned and there was a huge, huge fin behind her. It was massive," she told Nine Network's 60 Minutes.
From BBC ● Aug. 31, 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
Scream queen Samara Weaving has an extraordinary yell: shrill, feral and ferocious, like a mongoose before it goes on the attack.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 19, 2026
The boy put two fingers in his mouth and made a shrill whistle.
From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin
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
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
It was a little while before Harry became aware that the voices of Katie Bell and her friend, which were being carried back to him on the wind, had become shriller and louder.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
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
Villon reversed the process: his landscapes seethed with the brightest, sharpest and sometimes shrillest colors he could mix.
From Time Magazine Archive
He evidently took umbrage at this unction, and discoursed in his shrillest tones till he was fairly out of breath.
From The Captive in Patagonia by Benjamin Franklin Bourne
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
Holding the other at bay with a sword cane, Cadell shrills a police whistle as the curtain falls.
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
“There’ll never be another like him,” she shrilled when she recovered.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 5, 2016
The biometer shrilled again: temperature 102.5 and climbing.
From Nature ● Jun. 29, 2011
“Me, too! I wanna do something, too,” May Belle shrilled.
From "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson
Thus was born the Nightingale of Samarkand, who was lowered in a cage during the bed scene while shrilling an insane modal tune to keep the Princess awake.
From New York Times ● Aug. 9, 2022
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
But the music of the pearl was shrilling with triumph in Kino.
From "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck
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