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Shrill   /ʃrɪl/   Listen
Shrill

adjective
(compar. shriller; superl. shrillest)
1.
Having or emitting a high-pitched and sharp tone or tones.  Synonym: sharp.  "A shrill gaiety"
2.
Being sharply insistent on being heard.  Synonym: strident.  "Shrill criticism"
3.
Of colors that are bright and gaudy.



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"Shrill" Quotes from Famous Books



... be cooled since. It is not the loud noise of words that is best heard in heaven, or that is constructed to be crying to God. No, this is transacted in the heart more silently to men, but it striketh up into the ears of God. His ear is sharp, and that voice of the soul's desires is shrill, and though it were out of the depths, they will meet together. It is true, the vehemency of affection will sometimes cause the extension of the voice; but yet it may cry as loud to heaven when it is kept within. I do not press such extraordinary degrees of ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... apple-hued face bowed in reply. He bowed with difficulty, for in his arms he held a huge grey cat, which still mewed with the excitement of the chase. Rats had been turned loose on the floor, and it had accounted for them to the accompaniment of a shrill urging from the bed. Now the sport was over, and the domestics who had crowded round the door to see it had slipped away, leaving only Anton and ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan

... pre-eminently her color, setting off each and every one of her charms and suggesting the roundness and softness and whiteness her drapery concealed. She was one of those rare beings whose every pose is instinct with grace. And her voice—It was small, rather high, at times almost shrill. But in every note of its register there sounded a mysterious, melancholy-sweet call to the responding ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... suddenly down to an easy keel, rocking in that glassy sea as if in a tide rip. The deck was awash with oil. Far out in the bay the ripples widening from the schooner blurred the reflections of the stars. The Chinamen swarmed up the hatch-way, voluble and shrill. Again the "Bertha Millner" lifted and sank, the tubs sliding on the deck, the masts quivering like reeds, the timbers groaning aloud with the strain. In the stern something cracked and smashed. Then the trouble died away, the ripples faded into the ocean, and the schooner settled to her keel, ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... themselves from Bob's lines and ran forward. In a few minutes they were dragging the terrified fugitives from the trams and driving them along the street. They came towards us, wailing aloud in high shrill voices, like women. Behind them came Bob's volunteers, carrying the wounded dragoon, and supporting a couple of the fugitives who had been knocked down by the soldiers. The howling men were pushed through the ranks to the rear. ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham

... Williams was concluding the communion service, the door of the church was burst open, and old Ike, tottering into the aisle, cried out in a shrill voice:— ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... and the Red House had been buzzing hives since dawn, Mrs. Carre handling her forces and volunteers and supernumeraries with the skill of a veteran, and with encouragement so shrill and animated that it sounded like scolding, but was in ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... the northern wagoner had set His sevenfold teme behind the steadfast starre, That was in ocean waves yet never wet, But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre To all that in the wild deep wandering are: And chearful chanticleer with his note shrill Had warned once that Phoebus' fiery carre In haste was climbing up the easterne hill, Full envious that night so long ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... deadline. Never, I believe, in those times when almost daily the Argonaut-laden boats were sailing for the Golden North, was there one in which the sporting element was so dominant. The social hall reeked with patchouli and stale whiskey. From the staterooms came shrill outbursts of popular melody, punctuated with the popping of champagne corks. Dance-hall girls, babbling incoherently, reeled in the passageways, danced on the cabin table, and were only held back from licentiousness by the restraint of their ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... was so paralysed with terror that he could do nothing but set up a shrill screaming, clinging to the boat with both ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce

... both kinds; and I was extricating myself as well as I could from my petitioners, with the assurance that I would come by-and-bye and visit them again, when I felt my dress suddenly feebly jerked, and a shrill cracked voice on the other side of me exclaimed, 'Missus, no go yet—no go away yet; you no see me, missus, when you come by-and-bye; but,' added the voice in a sort of wail, which seemed to me as if the thought was full of misery, 'you see many, many of my offspring.' These melancholy words, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble

... workmen out of my own pocket; for the Duke, after giving Lattanzio Gorini orders to discharge their wages, at the end of about eighteen months, grew tired, and withdrew this subsidy. I asked Lattanzio why he did not pay me as usual. The man replied, gesticulating with those spidery hands of his, in a shrill gnat's voice: "Why do not you finish your work? One thinks that you will never get it done." In a rage I up and answered: "May the plague catch you and all who dare to think I ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... turned and saw the eye in the wall. Throwing down thread and web she moved angrily to the door, gave a shrill scream and flew out under the sky. Like a white speck against the blue hills, she appeared for a little while and then ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various

... time when my stern teacher began to give sudden war-whoops over my head in the morning while I was sound asleep. He expected me to leap up with perfect presence of mind, always ready to grasp a weapon of some sort and to give a shrill whoop in reply. If I was sleepy or startled and hardly knew what I was about, he would ridicule me and say that I need never expect to sell my scalp dear. Often he would vary these tactics by shooting off his gun just outside of the lodge while I was yet asleep, at the same time giving ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... boatmen on the wharf, rising above the ringing of discordant bells, and the rumble of railway trains. There was clanging and clashing of metal on every side, hauling of ropes, pitching and heaving of merchandise, with now a shrill scream from the throat of some dainty craft hard by, and again a hoarse sepulchral response from a larger vessel as it came or went. There was a buzz of human voices expressive of every sort of agitation and confusion, and quietly through it all, the great waves slapped against the shore ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... struck the ship and shook it from end to end; and presently the machinery came to a full stop. Then there was hurrying of feet on deck, and they could hear the boatswain's shrill pipe, and the captain giving commands. The steerage was soon a scene of terror. Those who rushed up the stairs were met with fastened doors, and were compelled to remain below. Women screamed and prayed and ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson

... his side, he ventured in the light of day into Main Street or strode up and down on the rickety front porch of his own house, talking excitedly. The voice that had been low and trembling became shrill and loud. The bent figure straightened. With a kind of wriggle, like a fish returned to the brook by the fisherman, Biddlebaum the silent began to talk, striving to put into words the ideas that had been accumulated by his mind during long years ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson

... of the Demoiselles Denis, the chevalier was not thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives us over ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... awakened by hearing the doctor's whistle across the street. He was up in a moment looking in all directions, for though he heard him, he could not see his master. He leaped out of the buggy and ran across the street, from where the sound seemed to come. As he ran the whistle was repeated loud and shrill, but no doctor ...
— Zip, the Adventures of a Frisky Fox Terrier • Frances Trego Montgomery

... to whisper to each other, and in arranging their positions behind their respective masters, they knocked several of the guns together. In the same moment, the two leading elephants discovered us, and, throwing their trunks up perpendicularly, they blew the shrill trumpet of alarm without attempting to retreat. Several trumpets answered the call immediately from different positions in the high grass, from which, trunks were thrown up, and huge heads just appeared in many places, as they endeavoured ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... comparatively young. Yet he looked like animated waste matter. His face seemed to hang on him. His mouth was loose and void of expression. His eyes were bleared and ever on the move. He spoke mostly in a toneless drawl, that sometimes turned into a shrill whine, but also at rare intervals could change into a soft, heart-winning purr. His clothing was poorer and coarser than that of any other person seen by Keith. Once or twice it seemed to the boy like a repulsive uniform, and he heard his parents speak with mingled ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman

... the Marquis d'Aubremel the monies he is expecting," said the man, and his voice, shrill and silvery, like a musical box or the bell of a clock, impressed Felix painfully. The voice grated on the nerves. "I have drawn a receipt in regular form," said Felix, extending his hand. But the solicitor's clerk leaned his back against the door, without stirring ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... the locomotive, and the shrill scream from the steamboat, are heard here all day; a continuous stream of life ever bustles through the city, and, standing as it does on the very verge of western civilisation, Chicago is a vast emporium of the trade of the districts east ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... into Queenstown harbor, and then stopped. The anchor chains rattled, the big iron grasped the bottom, and the vessel was still. What a sensation to be once more at rest! Now out from the shore came a tender to take Queenstown passengers ashore. Small boats came alongside from which came shrill cries to those far above on deck. A small rope was thrown up which was caught and hauled in by the interested spectators. At the end of the small rope there dangled a heavier one, and at the end of that there was a loop into which a good-sized Irish woman ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... containing the icon glittered, illuminated on all sides by tall candles ornamented with golden spirals. The candelabra was filled with tapers, and from the choir sounded most merry tunes sung by amateur choristers, with bellowing bass and shrill ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

... an unsuspected listener to this conversation. Lawrence had come in from the field for a drink, and was standing in the open kitchen doorway, within easy earshot of the women's shrill tones. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... with, and it is ignored only at the expense of feasibility. Some later Romanticists, therefore, such as Spohr and Mendelssohn, came back immediately to the comfortable middle register as the real vocal register of song. The thirst for shrill sounds had made men entirely forget that a song must be easy to sing just because it must always be sung suggestively and never be delivered with full dramatic execution. Do not our singers, who since Schubert's time are ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... irresistible, dangerful and gloomy, breaking silence only by the loud fierce cry of the gong. Two rivers of people swarmed along the sidewalks, spattered with black mud, which made each shoe leave a scarlike impression. Overhead elevated trains with a shrill grinding of the wheels stopped at the station, which upon its leglike pillars seemed to resemble some monstrous kind of crab squatting over the street. The quick fat puffings of the engines could be heard. Down an alley there were somber curtains of ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... and dances were accompanied by the monotonous beating of the native drum, tun, by the shrill sound of reed flutes, xul, by the tinkling of small metal bells, [c]alakan, which they attached to their feet, and by rattles of small gourds or jars containing pebbles, known as zoch. Other musical instruments mentioned, are the chanal, the whistle (pito, Dicc. Anon.), ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton

... L. B.—All the open and secret Copperhead organs raise a shrill cry on account of what they pervert into McClellan's general Report of his unmilitary campaigns. When a commander is in the field, he is in duty bound, as soon as possible, that is, in the next few weeks, to send to his superior or to the Government, a Report of each of his military movements ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... head lay upon the polished table I saw the Hindu put a short double-reed pipe to his mouth, and next instant the room was filled with weird, shrill music, while at the same moment he unfastened the side of the little box and ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux

... worst moods, there lies in him a singular attraction. A wild tone pervades the whole utterance of the man, like its keynote and regulator; now screwing itself aloft as into the Song of Spirits, or else the shrill mockery of Fiends; now sinking in cadences, not without melodious heartiness, though sometimes abrupt enough, into the common pitch, when we hear it only as a monotonous hum; of which hum the true character is extremely difficult to fix. Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... the quick beat of the hearts that remember, the tenderness of those who think upon old sorrows,—all these make the day a lovelier and a sadder festival. So men's hearts were stirred, they knew not why, when they heard the shrill fife and the incessant drum along the quiet Barlow road, and saw the handful of old soldiers marching by. Nobody thought of them as familiar men and neighbors alone,—they were a part of that army which had ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... girls arrived, and a more maddening cargo I can't imagine. I gave orders to keep them forward, but their shrill presence nevertheless penetrates aft. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... streak came into the sky, and perfume burst from the bushes, and the woods rang, not only with songs some shrill, some as sweet as honey, but with a grotesque yet beautiful electric merriment of birds that can only be heard in this land of wonders. The pen can give but a shadow of the drollery and devilry of the sweet, merry rogues that hailed the smiling morn. Ten thousand of them, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... do not understand Greek—only Arabic? Well, he asks me to give him money to pay for his dinner and his night's lodging. You must forgive him, for he is but a simple peasant, and cannot believe that anyone may be lodged and fed without payment. I will explain to him, the pig!" And explain he did in shrill, high notes, of which no one ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... Indian thought that brandy must be a decoction of hearts and tongues, "because," said he, "after drinking it I fear nothing, and I talk wonderfully." In Java there is a tiny earthworm which now and then utters a shrill sound like that of the alarum of a small clock. Hence when a public dancing girl has screamed herself hoarse in the exercise of her calling, the leader of the troop makes her eat some of these worms, in the belief that thus she will regain her voice and ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... a shrill and dreadful scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired. I rushed in. There, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down, and her pale and distorted features half covered with her hair, was the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... hour. The jack and chimney near allied, Had never left each other's side; The chimney to a steeple grown, The jack would not be left alone; But up against the steeple reared, Became a clock, and still adhered; And still its love to household cares By a shrill voice at noon declares, Warning the cook-maid not to burn That roast meat which it ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... keep the rockers swinging, And deepen slumber in the shut blue eyes, And the shrill cadences of her high singing Are to the babe but ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... a shrill childish laugh, and the next moment little Lucy, hotly pursued by fat Marjorie, dashed into view. Lucy rushed up to her father, clasped her arms round his legs and looked up ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... gathered about the well. Straightening myself up, I saw a group of maids from the village, and, in the middle, one who bent over the water. Presently she scrambled to her feet, glanced over her shoulder and gave a shrill scream. ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... mysterious light. Let them listen more intently to the flutes and harps and they will discover quite a different melody beneath—a melody by no means bewitching or soothing, nor inviting us to dreams, sweet forgetfulness, soft couches, and tender embraces, but a shrill and mocking tune that is at times insolently discordant and that strikes us as decidedly modern, realistic, and threatening. As the poet himself expressed it in his ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... on the great flatboat that had followed us, carrying our provisions and our horses, my own mare, Fatima, with her proudly arched neck. Before I had time to think of my manners I had put my fingers to my lips and uttered through them the shrill whistle with which I had used to call her. Instantly her head was flung swiftly up, and I saw her start as if to come to me, while up the bluff was borne her shrill whinnies, high above the shouts of the men, who had ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... Gard set off after them to see the end of the matter, and suddenly, as the roadway dipped between high banks and became a hollow way, the white beast gave a shrill squeal, flung up his heels, jerked himself free, and vanished like a streak of light into the darkness of the lofty bank ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham

... the hut rose a low sweet song, at which all the simple Indians bowed their heads in reverence; and the English were hushed in astonishment; for the voice was not shrill or guttural, like that of an Indian, but round, clear, and rich, like a European's; and as it swelled and rose louder and louder, showed a compass and power which would have been extraordinary anywhere (and many a man of the party, as was usual in musical old England, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... never discovered for just at that moment a shrill scream ran through the night, followed by the exclamation in ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann

... suddenly with a quaint curtsy. Her voice was shrill and piping, but softened somewhat by age. "Is dis yere whar Mistuh Ryduh lib, suh?" she asked, looking around her doubtfully, and glancing into the open windows, through which some of the preparations for the evening ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various

... yellow daffodils, And East to West, and West to East, Fling answering welcome-fires, By dawn and day-fall, on the jocund hills. And ye, winged minstrels of her fair meinie, Being newly coated in glad livery, Upon her steps attend, And round her treading dance and without end Reel your shrill lutany. What popular breath her coming does out-tell The garrulous leaves among! What little noises stir and pass From blade to blade along the voluble grass! O Nature, never-done Ungaped-at Pentecostal ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... windfalls about which the new growth had sprung up. Its top was like the thin edge of a wedge, and the farther side dropped, a steep sand-bank, to the stream which flowed at its foot. When we were hardly more than half-way up, there was the sound of a shot and a funny, little shrill cry from Job. Bruin had been climbing the sand-bank, and was nearly at the top when Job fired. The bullet evidently struck him for, doubling up, his head between his legs, he rolled over and over to the foot of the bank. When I reached the top of the hill he ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)

... little things put together. I was greatly impressed with this fact one morning as I stood watching the workmen erecting the steel framework for a tall office building. A shrill whistle rang out as a signal, a man over at the engine pulled a lever, a chain from the derrick was lowered, and the whistle rang out again. A man stooped down and fastened the chain around the center of a steel beam, stepped back and blew the whistle once more. Again the ...
— Power of Mental Imagery • Warren Hilton

... thy nest, Robin-redbreast! Sing, birds, in every furrow; And from each hill, let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow! Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow! You pretty elves, amongst yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow; To give my Love good-morrow Sing birds, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... with a turn as quick as a lightning flash he swung the horse round on its hind legs in a quarter circle and before the astounded Mexican could tighten the loop there were two flashing reports and a bullet had crashed through each wrist. Antone's arms dropped on his saddle, and through the shrill din of the mingled Spanish and English curses he shrieked at Mead came the sharp cracking of three revolvers. Emerson Mead felt one bullet whistle through his sleeve and one through the rim of his sombrero, as, with the rope still on his shoulders, he ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly

... while ago, and perhaps I have forgotten it. I cannot tell, my dear. It is only from April in her own person that one hears this immemorial message. And as for me? Eh, I go into the April woods, and I find trees there of various sizes that pay no attention to me, and shrill, dingy little birds that deafen me, and it may be a gaudy flower or two, and, in any event, I find a vast quantity of sodden, decaying leaves to warn me the place is no fitting haunt for a gentleman afflicted with rheumatism. So ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... night with soiled feet, coats and trousers, "this ain't the way ter git ter be president." He organized a company of "regulators" in the boys' dormitory, and when any fellows turned in with soiled feet, coats and trousers, Steve's shrill whistle summoned the army and a lively pillow fight ensued which was hard on the pillows but always brought victory for nightgowns. And when a boy refused to brush his hair in the morning the regulators ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins

... handkerchiefs tied round their dark heads—washed, with a fine impartiality, soiled linen and vegetables in an iron trough, grated for a third of its length, before a fountain of debased and flamboyant design. Their voices were alternately shrill and gutteral. It was perhaps as well not to understand too clearly all which they said. On the left came a break in the high, painted house-fronts, off which in places the plaster scaled, and from the windows ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... firmly holden, and his enemy was still unprovided with the means of defence. Now did Sir Lancelot begin to doubt what course he should pursue, when suddenly the damsel, who, having bound up the wounds of the captive knight as he lay, and now sat a little way off watching the event, cried out with a shrill voice— ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... to go round to Kangwe and ask Mme. Jacot, of the Mission Evangelique, if she will take me in. The air is stiff with mosquitoes, and saying a few suitable words to them, I dash under the mosquito bar and sleep, lulled by their shrill yells of ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... could do was to watch with fearful eyes and straining ears for his coming, and slink out of the way with her child, lest both should be beaten as well as cursed; for faithful old Keery, once daring to face him with a volley of reproaches from her shrill tongue, was levelled to the floor by a blow from his rapid hand, and bore bruises for weeks that warned her from interference. Not long, however, was there danger of her meddling. When the baby was a year and a half old. Keery, in her out-door labors,—now grown burdensome ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... the West and East Shall flock and flit about the feast Like doves that cooled, with waving wing, The banquets of the Cyprian king. Old shapes of song that do not die Shall haunt the halls of memory, And though the Bow shall prelude clear Shrill as the song of Gunnar's spear, There answer sobs from lute and lyre That murmured of ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... never known whether this effect was produced by the presence of a multitude, by shrill and discordant sounds, or by returning recollection, too powerful for his enfeebled frame. He was tenderly carried from the crowd, and restoratives having been applied, in vain, the melancholy burden was slowly and carefully ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... drive Michael heard steps coming. Then a struggle and a shrill giggle. Some young people were coming to the wake, and he knew a boy had tried to kiss a girl in the dark. He felt a dull ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the tower of St. Hathelswide, he walked up the narrow entry from the market-place, along which the editor-reporter had shot the previous night, and, after a preliminary reconnoitring of the premises, tapped at a door marked "Editorial." A shrill voice bade him enter, and he turned the handle to find himself inspecting an unusually untidy and littered room, the atmosphere of which seemed chiefly to be derived from a mixture of gas, paste and printers' ink. Somewhere beyond ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... angel, sitting high in glory, Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory: "Have mercy, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... other in his shrill voice. "I'm ashamed of myself, gentlemen, but the strain I've been under— When you've ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... had not been idle. He slipped the handcuffs from his slender wrists and seizing the club of one of the fallen policemen, aimed a blow at the second man who leaped at Johnny. A moment later, Johnny heard his shrill whisper: ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell

... these things to sell for? Why not let each one give ten cents for . going to the party?" asked Winny Curtis, in a tone that was very nearly a squeak, so shrill and ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis

... The well-appointed king[1] at Hampton pier Embark his royalty;[2] and his brave fleet With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning: Play with your fancies; and in them behold Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing; Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails, Borne with the invisible and creeping wind, Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea, Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think You stand upon the rivage,[3] ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... not have long to wait, for presently a tall, gaunt figure strode out of the brambles some yards from the fallen horse and uttered a hoarse shout, upon which Ab sprang from the spot where he had fallen and ran toward the newcomer, giving vent to shrill ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler

... stock still for the fraction of a second. Then he pulled out his whistle and blew loudly and insistently. Before the shrill call had died away, he was striding towards the passage, with Viner ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher

... Barbara, in a shrill whisper. "If he is not asleep, wait until he is. I would not have him wakened, but I must have the ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed

... country squire, straight from his cow-sheds and his hunting dogs; a young blond German giant, 32 years old, in the very prime of his massive strength and endurance; plentiful hair cropped short, ruddy face, blond beard, bright blue eyes, big fists; high, shrill voice, strangely out of keeping with his physical bulk. For years afterward, this peculiar voice became the stock in trade of newspaper writers. However, it was what ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... a minute or two, closing my desk, finding my coat, when I heard some one come into the outer office, a visitor, for little Pete's voice went up to a shrill yap with the information that I was busy. Then the knob turned, the door opened, and there stood Cummings. At first he saw only me ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... where painters who have not a cent in the world mix with beggars and guttersnipes to cajole a little hot food out of soft-hearted soldiers at mess-time. Convent doors where ragged lines shiver for hours in the shrill wind that blows across the bare Castilian plain waiting for the nuns to throw out bread for them to fight over like dogs. And through it all moves the great crowd of the outcast, sneak-thieves, burglars, beggars of every description,—rich beggars and poor devils who have ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos

... in the castle of Avenel, when a winded bugle sent its shrill and prolonged notes from the shore of the lake, and was replied to cheerily by the signal of the warder. The Lady of Avenel knew the sounds of her husband, and rushed to the window of the apartment in which she was sitting. A band of about thirty ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... is one of indescribable animation. The cabmen drive furiously this day their broken-kneed nags, who will soon be found on the horns of the bulls, for this is the natural death of the Madrid cab-horse; the omnibus teams dash gayly along with their shrill chime of bells; there are the rude jests of clowns and the high voices of excited girls; the water-venders droning their tempting cry, "Cool as the snow!" the sellers of fans and the merchants of gingerbread picking up their harvests in the ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay

... even the golden rod and the purple aster, those hardy children of autumn, began to hang their heads with thirst. All day long, the grasshopper and locust sent through the hot, panting air, their shrill notes, stinging the ear with discord. The heaven above looked like a dome of brass, and a thin, filmy smoke ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... the screaming of women, and the scuttling of poultry, and then we were out in the country again, with the long, steep incline of the Redhill Road before us. My uncle waved his whip in the air with a shrill view- halloa. ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... been left for some time to the tender mercies of the women and children; the men having assembled together to hold, as we afterwards found, a consultation regarding our disposal—their savage yells and cries reaching our ears even above the shrill shrieks and shouts of the women. It was evident that our captors were engaged in a hot discussion, but not one of them, we had reason to suppose, was lifting up his voice in ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston

... receive hypnotic indoctrination and, while unconscious, have an operation performed on his ears which would enable him to hear sounds well above the normal audible range. He would be able to hear the shrill sonar-cries of bats, for instance, and, more important, he would be able to hear voices when the speaker used a First Level audio-frequency step-up phone. He would also receive a memory-obliteration ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper

... A shrill piercing scream, like the cry of a tortured soul, rang out of the forest, rising clear and trembling above the tolling of the bell and the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... round and round, now riding backward, now forward, now on one foot, now on his hands with his feet in the air. Then he leaped upright, and putting his fingers to his mouth he gave a shrill whistle. At that the white steed suddenly dashed into the ring and galloped up beside the black one, and now Teddy rode with a foot on each. Faster and faster he rode, crying "Houp-la!" and even the King clapped his hands. Once and twice he rode round the ring and past the platform, ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle

... down the cliffs; but the mother bird flew towards me with such piteous cries that even in my danger I could not be so cruel, so I removed the little ones to a crevice close at hand and seated myself upon their nest, thankful of the refuge it afforded. And now I heard a shrill whistle from Robbie Rosson, by which I understood that, seeing my comparative safety, he was going to find some place where he could get down to the beach, there to wait until I should bring the boat round ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... sure—dogs! There were no barking dogs to greet him. It was curious, he thought, for these isolated families always had plenty of dogs and no "breed" or "Injun" outfit ever kept fewer than six. There were no shrill voices of children at play, no sound of an axe or a saw ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... the bed of fir-boughs he had made for her, lay Gloria. He did not look that way. The wind was rising; he heard it go rushing through the tree-tops; it struck with sudden, relentless impact; it set the shivering needles to shrill whistling; it made the staunch old trunks shudder. He heard the canvas flap-flapping by Gloria's bed; above him tossing boughs scraped ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory

... shrill cry of "crack, crack, crack—rackety, rackety, rackety," repeated from the throats of dozens, as they sometimes stooped quite close to our ears, became at length almost unbearable. It seemed as if they had lost their senses in the excitement of so unusual and splendid a ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... instant, with eerie, jubilant interruption, the waiting-woman made the very air shudder with a laugh of such shrill exultation and riotous abandon that Lal Lu, for a moment forgetful of her own extremity, gazed with unconcealed amazement and alarm upon the ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder

... the meaning of this strange company, and it so frightened him that he attempted to hide behind a tree, in the hope that they might pass without seeing him. But no sooner had he secreted himself than a strange, shrill chattering came from the foremost of the group, and in an instant Toby emerged ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis

... Arden, child, whose blood is in your veins, who fought and fell at Barnet, crying shrill and fierce, 'Edward my King, St. George and victory!' And the young Edward, near him as he fell, called to a knight to lay hand to his heart, for Edward knew and loved him well, and had received of him money ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin

... was terrific. Howls, shrill yelps, thumps and crashes. Then came a crash louder than any preceding it, a splash of water across the sill, and from the doorway leaped, or flew, an object steaming and dripping, fluttering with fly paper, and with a giant lobster clamped firmly to its tail. The lobster was knocked ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln

... the larger wherry, immediately shipped their oars, grappled with the drifting skiff, and held it fast. Wood, then, beheld two persons, one of whom he recognised as Rowland, spring on board the chase. A fierce struggle ensued. There was a shrill cry, instantly succeeded by a ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... and the lute: Though others think the lute was first devis'd In imitation of a tortoise-back, Whose sinews, parched by Apollo's beams, Echo'd about the concave of the shell: And seeing the shortest and smallest gave shrill'st sound, They found out frets, whose sweet diversity (Well-touched by the skilful learned fingers) Raiseth so strange a multitude of chords. Which their opinion many do confirm, Because Testado signifies a lute. But if I ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... the shrill, startling battle cry swelled to the hysterical pack yell, and, gathering depth and volume, burst out into a frantic treble roar. A long gray line detached itself from the woods; mounted officers, sashed and debonaire, trotted jauntily out in front of it; the beautiful battle ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... talk in her shrill voice, from time to time sucking in the superfluous saliva with a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... called, and wondered at the shrill sound of her own voice. "'Dolph!" She was standing erect, crooking her arm. The dog dropped on his fore-paws, crouched, and sprang through the hoop she made for him; crouched, sprang back again, alighted, and broke into a ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... houses, to sleep, spin wool, and think of Boodh, if of anything at all, the dead, long winter through. The yaks alone can find anything to do: so long as any vegetation remains they roam and eat it, still yielding milk, which the women take morning and evening, when their shrill whistle and cries are heard for a few minutes, as they call the grunting animals. No other sounds, save the harsh roar and hollow echo of the falling rock, glacier, or snow-bed, disturbed the perfect silence of the day or night.* [Snow covers the ground at Yangma from December till April, and the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... of angels, one is apt to hear the rustling of their wings," added Rose, as a shrill whistle came up the avenue accompanied by ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... as if inhabited by dancing ghosts. Somewhere, crockery rattled. There was an alarming creaking, as if great timbers were grinding together. And there was, over all, a shrill, menacing, unceasing howl—the same dread sounds that had ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... await its charge. With a shrill scream she sped forward, running at the full of her speed across the moonlight directly towards that shadowed part of the encircling wall within whose thickness I had my gazing place; and then, throwing ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... by an usher of the court. Sir William read the note as he sat on the bench, and having looked towards the fair scribe, he received from her a glance and a smile that were fruitful of much misery to him. Within four months the courteous Sir William Scott was tied fast to a beautiful, shrill, voluble termagant, who exercised marvellous ingenuity in rendering him wretched and contemptible. Reared in a stately school of old-world politeness, the unhappy man was a model of decorum and urbanity. He took reasonable pride in ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... land fowls. We saw none but eagles of the larger sorts of birds, but five or six sorts of small birds. The biggest sort of these were not bigger than larks, some no bigger than wrens, all singing with great variety of fine shrill notes; and we saw some of their nests with young ones in them. The water-fowls are ducks (which had young ones now, this being the beginning of the spring in these parts), curlews, galdens, crab-catchers, cormorants, gulls, pelicans, and ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton

... the captain he might be discovered bluffing in another—so he resolved to investigate. Accordingly at an hour when he knew Terence should be in the engine room he took up the speaking-tube at the head of his bed and blew into it. But no shrill whistle signalled his desire in the engine room, and though Michael blew until he was red in the face and his lips hurt him cruelly, reluctantly he came to the conclusion that Herr August Carl von Staden had the situation very well in hand and Terence Reardon in the latter's ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... kettle had had the last of its solo performances. It persevered with undiminished ardor; but the cricket took first fiddle, and kept it. Good heaven, how it chirped! Its shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... those knaves?" cried he, with a shrill voice, rapping on the floor with his cane. "Where are those ignorant fellows, those pedants, those ill-bred men that did not wait for me? Ah! so you are the patient," said he to the stupefied king. "That is good. Put out your tongue. Quick! I ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... Electricity (that thing which to us is only a name and of which we know nothing), forgets home, wife, child, supper; and midnight finds him in his laboratory, where he has been since sunrise—just imagine, if you please, the shrill greeting that is in cold storage for him when he stumbles home, haggard and worn, at dawn. How can he explain why he did this thing and answer the questions as to who was there, and what good it all ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... rapidly. Already snow fell fast in big thick flakes. To make it worse, the wind was beginning to rise. It came in shrill ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... the bush, and then circling round, reached the west side of the creek, in the dry bed of which he hoped to find Bolter. He examined the ground carefully, expecting to find some track of the missing horse, but not a sign could he see. Half an hour or more elapsed, when he heard Harry's shrill cooey; but, from the faintness of the sound, he knew that his brother must be a long way off. Putting spurs to his horse he galloped forward, expecting every moment to see Bolter dash out of the creek and make for the west. At last he caught sight of Harry, and directly afterwards, ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston

... was a clatter by the fountain, and the shrill small pipe of D'Aurigny, the youngest boy ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... sensational French books appear to be translated. But as French painters and actors now habitually surpass all others even in what are claimed as the English qualities,—simplicity and truth,—so do French prose-writers excel. To be set against the brutality of Carlyle and the shrill screams of Ruskin, there is to be seen across the Channel the extraordinary fact of an actual organization of good writers, the French Academy, whose influence all nations feel. Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... possible more cowardly: I felt my heart sink, as after uttering some half-intelligible words, the sable visitor departed. While drinking tea in solitude, musing on the old familiar faces of my former home, never was the croaking of the frog so loud, the curlo's note so shrill, the evening air so gentle. I heard the negro servants without expressing their astonishment that, now as massa was gone, missus wouldn't call in Miss Jane (the maid), and make her 'peak' to her; adding—'Rosevale ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various

... converted into a cinema at the opposite end. Between these alluring extremities are various cafes, each with its chairs and tables, and each with a gramophone that pours its notes into the night. The panting of Caruso mingles with Tetrazzini's shrill exultation. ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas

... which their cottage stood, they saw two travelers approaching on foot. Close behind them came the fierce dogs, snarling at their very heels. A little farther off ran a crowd of children, who sent up shrill cries, and flung stones at the two strangers, with all their might. Once or twice, the younger of the two men (he was a slender and very active figure) turned about and drove back the dogs with a staff which he carried in his ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... did the hunter reply. He strode on and on and they watched him climbing up and up the mountainside till he was lost to view. At last he gained the rim of the nest and looked in. The old birds were away, but the fierce young eagles greeted him with shrill cries and fiery, flashing eyes. The hunter's heart was full of anger and he quickly bent his bow, loosing the war arrows one after another till the last one of the hateful birds lay ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss

... of the young chairman was withdrawn from the fighting-line, and the figure of the working-woman stood alone. With her lean brown finger pointing straight at the more outrageous of the young hooligans, and her voice raised shrill above their impertinence— ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... started into life at the words. That ravenous second hunger of poverty—the hunger for money—roused them into tumult and activity in a moment. "Two of you for more lanterns, if you have them! Two of you for the pickaxes and the tools! The rest after me to find the beam!" They cheered—with shrill starveling voices they cheered. The women and the children fled back on either side. We rushed in a body down the churchyard path to the first empty cottage. Not a man was left behind but the clerk—the poor old clerk standing on the flat tombstone sobbing and wailing over the church. The servant ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... ears as well as our eyes. Such a mingling of bird voices! The "spring o' th' year" of the meadow larks and the mingled squeaks and music of the robins are brought up by the wind from the river bottom, and the shrill clear "phe-be" of the chickadee is one of the prettiest sounds now, just as it was in February. Pretty soon a bevy of them come flitting and talking along, like a girl botany class on the search. Before they have passed out of sight the loud and prolonged "O-wick-o-wick-o-wick-o-wick" ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell

... foot of the stairs, looking up. When the watcher on the third floor spoke at last it was in a voice he didn't instantly recognize. He would have taken it for Claude's, only that it was so frightened and shrill. ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... I rebel!" cried the old woman with a shrill voice. "Why, what right has the pacha to drag me from my poor hovel; and what can he want with an old woman like me? It's not for his ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat



Words linked to "Shrill" :   squall, high-pitched, shout, hollo, shout out, yowl, imperative, yell, caterwaul, cry, call, scream, colorful, high, colourful, holler



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