scream
verb
noun
a high-pitched noise resembling a human cry
- “he ducked at the screechings of shells”
- “he heard the scream of the brakes”
Origin
Inherited from Middle English scremen, borrowed from or cognate with Middle Dutch scremen (“to yell; shout”) and Old Norse skræma (“to terrify; scare”); compare West Flemish schreemen, Zealandic schreême (“to shout; yell; cry”), Swedish skrämma (“to spook; frighten”), Danish skræmme (“to scare”), West Frisian skrieme (“to weep”). Compare also Swedish skräna (“to yell; shout; howl”), Dutch schreien (“to cry; weep”), German schreien (“to scream”). Related to shriek, skrike.
Phrases
- Howie scream
- kicking and screaming
- primal scream
- scream bloody murder
- scream blue murder
- scream for
- scream queen
- screaming abdabs
- screaming hairy armadillo
- screaming jelly babies
- screaming meemie
- Wilhelm scream
Related words
Word family
WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.