Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To utter a long loud piercing cry, as from pain or fear.
- v. To make a loud piercing sound: Jet planes screamed through the air.
- v. To speak or write in a heated hysterical manner.
- v. To have or produce a startling effect: The outlandish costume screamed with clashing colors.
- v. To utter or say in or as if in a screaming voice.
- n. A long, loud, piercing cry or sound.
- n. Informal One that is hilariously or ridiculously funny: The new play was a scream.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To cry out with shrill voice; give vent or utterance to a sharp or piercing outcry; utter shrill cries, as in fright or extreme pain, delight, etc.
- To give out a shrill sound: as, the railway whistle screamed. Synonyms See
scream , n. - n. A sharp, piercing sound or cry, as one uttered in fright, pain, etc.
- n. A sharp, harsh sound.
- n. Synonyms Scream, Shriek, Screech. A shriek is sharper, more sudden, and, when due to fear or pain, indicative of more terror or distress than a scream. Screech emphasizes the disagreeableness of the sharpness or shrillness, and its lack of dignity in a person. It is more distinctly figurative to speak of the shriek of a locomotive than to speak of its scream or screech.
Wiktionary
- n. A loud, emphatic, exclamation of extreme emotion, usually horror, fear, excitement et cetera. Can be the exclamation of a word, but is usually a sustained, high-pitched vowel sound, particularly /æ/ or /i/, in any case, the loudest and most emphatic sound a human can make tends to be a scream. The term is not generally applied to sounds made by non-humans.
- n. informal An entertainingly outrageous person.
- n. music A form of singing associated with the metal and screamo styles of music. It is a loud, rough, distorted version of the voice; rather than the normal voice of the singer.
- n. informal Used as an intensifier
- v. To make the sound of a scream.
- v. To move quickly; to race.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To cry out with a shrill voice; to utter a sudden, sharp outcry, or shrill, loud cry, as in fright or extreme pain; to shriek; to screech.
- n. A sharp, shrill cry, uttered suddenly, as in terror or in pain; a shriek; a screech.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a high-pitched noise resembling a human cry
- n. a joke that seems extremely funny
- v. utter or declare in a very loud voice
- v. make a loud, piercing sound
- v. utter a sudden loud cry
- n. sharp piercing cry
Etymologies
- shreamen (compare Old Norwegian skræma). related to shriek, skrike. cognate with West Frisian skrieme (to weep) German schreien (Schrei) (Wiktionary)
- Middle English screamen, possibly of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse scræma. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“But I will say that the term scream queen is being thrown around without any regard for what it really is.”
“I love Josh Radnor but the plot and even the title scream lame indie drama.”
Sundance Photo Preview: Josh Radnor’s happythankyoumoreplease | /Film
“Those who choose to use the term scream quite clearly their political bend.”
“I sure hope Minnesotans remember this ridiculous drawn-out death scream from the Repub Norm Coleman when it comes time to re-elect Franken.”
“I'm going to pass the ball, walk off the court and scream from the sidelines.”
“A return to an "Apollo on steroids" will only serve to have congress once again scream at the price of routine flights using disposable hardware.”
“Again with this racist card, jerk, maybe you come from a backwords state, the only thing yu can scream is race, why dont yu get educate in something else.”
Wilson says no more apologies for outburst against president
“And so what you have is just a primal scream from the electorate.”
“Obama, Reid, and Pelosi will scream from the mountain tops that we need to move quickly on this, b/c they know that time is against them, but I refer back to my original quote.”
“I want the medical community to scream from the rooftops that they had something wrong the same way they do every time they find something new.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘scream’.
-
®emovies
Movies or TV shows where the titles are also common words, generally one-word titles.
lost, alien, bug, elephant, siege, gladiator, flock, captivity, piano, roots, freaks, moonstruck and 269 more...
-
Words that are also movies
Unabashedly stolen from a comment made by courier12.
vertigo, serendipity, casablanca, psycho, jaws, fantasia, stagecoach, network, rocky, giant, platoon, unforgiven and 285 more...
-
Talk Talk
Words for Talking
( open list, randomness )squawk, gab, chatter, chitchat, blab, prattle, blather, discuss, hector, plead, cajole, harangue and 200 more...
-
Sounds
words that describe sound
atchoo, atishoo, babble, bam, bay, beep, blast, blather, bleat, bleep, blip, bong and 242 more...
-
El perro hace guau guau
Animal sounds in different languages, and the verbs that specify them.
Since Georgetown took down their page, the current definitive website for this information is:
Abbott ani...øf-øf, knor knor, groin groin, grunz, röf-röf, boo boo, hrgu hrgu, nöff-nöff, oink-oink, zumbar, ulular, rebuznar and 154 more...
-
Not edible
Things that sound edible but are not (usually). See Liberty's To Eat, or Not to Eat? for more diet food.
cinnabar, dulcimer, belfries, potto, maltha, grapple, loam, rake, tort, pomade, buffalo chip, wedgie and 172 more...
-
sound (loud)
words for loud sounds
( open list, descriptive, randomness )
also see:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/onomatopo...crash, thud, bump, thump, boom, smash, explode, roar, scream, screech, short, yell and 168 more...
-
I am : talking
"These are talking words," I announce. "You mean verbs that can be used for dialogue?" you ask. "That's right!" I agree.
say, speak, ask, declare, query, shout, yell, scream, shriek, squeal, squeak, screech and 81 more...
-
zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
-
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
-
Some Words I Love to Use
arcology, strumpet, crux, confected, pedant, bluestocking, cogitation, incensed, lovecraftian, cygnet, dactyl, adytum and 539 more...
-
Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 1984 more...
-
Setting the Scene: Dark and Dreary
Words that lend to the dark and dreary atmosphere of gothic literature.
dark, dreary, shroud, shrouded, veiled, skeleton, skeletal, dead, death, murky, gloomy, lugubrious and 274 more...
-
The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
-
Facade
civilization, illumination, clone, danger, enigma, garden, green, healer, laugh, lord, pledge, poem and 122 more...
-
_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1687 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for scream.

bilby Uncut. Feb 3, 2010