▪ I. screaming, vbl. n.
(ˈskriːmɪŋ)
[f. scream v. + -ing1.]
The action of the verb scream.
| c 1400 Destr. Troy 10182 The skrew for þe skrykyng & skremyng of folke, Redoundet with dyn drede for to here. 1687 T. Brown Saints in Uproar Wks. 1730 I. 72 Such roaring and screaming, such swaggering and bouncing. 1768–74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1834) II. 443 Nor may we pretend to faint away at the screamings of a country church, because we happen to have a fine ear..for music. 1892 Henley Song of Sword 9 A noise Of the screaming of eagles. |
▪ II. ˈscreaming, ppl. a.
[-ing2.]
1. a. That screams; sounding shrilly.
| 1602 B. Jonson Poetaster To Rdr. 100 Like so many screaming grasse-hoppers. 1700 Dryden Theodore & Honoria 100 And from afar he heard a screaming sound, As of a Dame distress'd, who cry'd for Aid. 1781 Cowper Hope 353 The screaming nations, hov'ring in mid air, Loudly resent the stranger's freedom there. 1892 Bierce In Midst of Life 89 Storms of screaming grape, which..splintered the trees. 1896 A. E. Housman Shropshire Lad xxxv, Far the calling bugles hollo, High the screaming fife replies. |
b. screaming eagle (U.S. slang) = ruptured duck (b).
| 1946 Newsweek 18 Mar. 34/1 ‘Ruptured duck’: GI for the discharge button which ex-service men wear in their lapels, also, ‘homecoming pigeon’ and ‘screaming eagle’. 1948 A. M. Taylor Lang. World War II 172 Ruptured Duck... Also nicknamed Screaming Eagle. |
2. transf. and fig. a. Tending to excite screams of laughter; said esp. of a farce.
| 1854 ‘C. Bede’ Verdant Green ii. x, It was a situation for a screaming farce. 1873 Hopkins Making Worst of it viii, The gorgeous and screaming new and original burlesque drama. |
b. Violent or startling in effect; glaring, blatant, obvious.
| 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair xxi, ‘―!’ burst out his father with a screaming oath. 1883 Harper's Mag. Apr. 700/2 When we..added these startling spots of colour..the effect was rather screaming. 1922 J. Hergesheimer Bright Shawl (1923) 205 The shawl..was malevolent, screaming in color. 1944 ‘G. Orwell’ Coll. Essays, Journalism & Lett. (1968) III. 168 The ‘screaming’ advertisement started some time in the nineteen-twenties. 1963 Australasian Post 14 Mar. 51/1 I'd be a screaming nong if I didn't recognise you as a creep. 1965 Listener 9 Dec. 941/1 None of..the anarchy of competing posters and screaming shop signs. 1968 Globe & Mail Magazine (Toronto) 13 Jan. 6/3 The commonly held stereotype of a homosexual is called, in gay jargon, a screaming queen. 1972 B. Rodgers Queens' Vernacular 177 Screaming, flagrantly homosexual. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 25 Sept. 13/1 Such segregation was..a screaming mockery of the Bill of Rights. 1977 New Yorker 15 Aug. 22/1 The News and the Post ran screaming headlines. 1981 Daily Tel. 20 Feb. 17/1 Spring colours are bright pink and screaming green with khaki chino skirts for women and khaki chino trousers for men. |
c. slang. First-rate, splendid.
| 1864 Hotten's Slang Dict., Screaming, first rate, splendid. 1879 M. E. Braddon Clov. Foot I. vi. 125 ‘Well’, cried the manager, radiant, ‘a screaming success. There's money in it.’ 1883 E. Pennell-Elmhirst Cream Leicestersh. 314 The Belvoir have, again, had a screaming run, a brilliant day, and a grand finish. 1897 Badminton Mag. IV. 386 The Rioters had come out of the wood on a screaming scent. |
d. screaming habdabs, etc.: see habdabs. screaming meemies, etc.: see meemies n. pl.
3. Comb., as screaming-scared adj.
| a 1963 C. S. Lewis Poems (1964) 106 My body awakes in bed Screaming-scared. |
Hence ˈscreamingly adv.; chiefly in the phr. ‘screamingly funny’ (cf. prec. 2 a).
| 1847 Kinglake Eothen 173 The joyous girls will suddenly, and screamingly, and all at once, explain to each other that [etc.]. 1879 Geo. Eliot in Cross Life (1885) III. 368 You would be screamingly amused by one. 1892 Cornhill Mag. Apr. 444 They are screamingly funny. |