shrill

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. High-pitched and piercing in tone or sound: the shrill wail of a siren.
2. adj. Producing a sharp, high-pitched tone or sound: a shrill fife.
3. adj. Sharp or keen to the senses; harshly vivid: shrill colors.
4. v. To utter in a shrill manner; scream.
5. v. To produce a shrill cry or sound.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To utter or emit a keen, piercing, high-pitched sound.
2. To sound shrilly; be shrill.
3. To cause to give out a shrill sound.
4. To utter or produce with a shrill sound.
5. Sharp and piercing in sound; high and keen (somewhat disagreeably so) in voice or note: the common use of the word.
6. Emitting or capable of emitting a sharp, high, piercing sound.
7. Piercing; sharp; affecting the senses sharply or keenly; bright.
8. n. A keen or piercing sound.
9. In a shrill manner; shrilly.

Wiktionary

1. adj. High-pitched and piercing.
2. adj. Sharp or keen to the senses.
3. v. To make a shrill noise.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Acute; sharp; piercing; having or emitting a sharp, piercing tone or sound; -- said of a sound, or of that which produces a sound.
2. n. obsolete A shrill sound.
3. v. To utter an acute, piercing sound; to sound with a sharp, shrill tone; to become shrill.
4. v. To utter or express in a shrill tone; to cause to make a shrill sound.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. utter a shrill cry
2. adj. of colors that are bright and gaudy
3. adj. being sharply insistent on being heard
4. adj. having or emitting a high-pitched and sharp tone or tones