SCREECHING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does screeching mean? 

• SCREECHING (noun)
  The noun SCREECHING has 2 senses:

1. a high-pitched noise resembling a human cry

2. sharp piercing cry

  Familiarity information: SCREECHING used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SCREECHING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A high-pitched noise resembling a human cry

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

scream; screaming; screech; screeching; shriek; shrieking

Context example:

he heard the scream of the brakes

Hypernyms ("screeching" is a kind of...):

noise (sound of any kind (especially unintelligible or dissonant sound))

Derivation:

screech (make a high-pitched, screeching noise)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Sharp piercing cry

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

scream; screaming; screech; screeching; shriek; shrieking

Context example:

her screaming attracted the neighbors

Hypernyms ("screeching" is a kind of...):

call; cry; outcry; shout; vociferation; yell (a loud utterance; often in protest or opposition)

 Context examples 

There was a tremendous snarling and spitting and screeching.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

A screeching of asthmatic springs greeted the weight of his body, but he did not notice them.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

As he raised himself to look over the bracken at his enemies, the staring color caught the eye of the bailiff, who broke into a long screeching whoop and spurred forward sword in hand.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An abnormally shrill or screeching vocalization made by infants that could possibly indicate the presence of one of an array of medical conditions or congenital syndromes, including birth trauma, craniosynostosis, Arnold-Chiari deformity, meningitis, and cri-du-chat syndrome.

(High Pitched Cry, NCI Thesaurus)

I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The streets were crowded with perils—waggons, carts, automobiles; great, straining horses pulling huge trucks; and monstrous cable and electric cars hooting and clanging through the midst, screeching their insistent menace after the manner of the lynxes he had known in the northern woods.

(White Fang, by Jack London)