▪ I. ˈscreaking, vbl. n.
[-ing1.]
The action of the verb screak; utterance or emission of a shrill cry or grating sound.
| 1565 Cooper Thesaurus s.v. Stridor, To heare the screakyng or crashyng of a saw. 1597 Morley Introd. Mus. 7 So that vnder Gam vt the voice seemed as a kinde of humming, and aboue E la a kinde of constrained skricking. 1668 Culpepper & Cole Barthol. Anat. iii. ix. 149 The noise of Water⁓streams, or the screekings of Grass-hoppers. 1722 De Foe Plague (1754) 95 Terrible Shrieks and Skreekings of Women. 1728 Morgan Algiers I. iv. 129 These Brutes, whose Language resembled the Screeking of Bats. 1816 Scott Old Mort. xiv, The screaking of a cracked fiddle. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 12 May 4/2 A silence broken only by the perpetual ‘skreeking’ of the katydids in the locust-trees. |
▪ II. ˈscreaking, ppl. a.
[-ing2.]
That screaks; that makes a shrill strident sound.
| 1565 Cooper Thesaurus s.v. Aridus, Sonus aridus, a shrill screkyng sounde. 1567 Turberv. Epit. etc. 125, I would become a Cat To combat with the creeping Mouse and scratch the screeking Rat. 1615 Rowlands Melancholie Knt. 30 Your skreeking Parrot will distract my sence. 1686 Plot Staffordsh. 384 Which joynt..moves not without a strong screaking pressure of the parts. 1825 Hazlitt Spirit of Age 88 With a harsh screaking voice. |