screak
English
[edit]Noun
[edit]screak (plural screaks)
- shriek; screech
- 1898, Amanda Millie Douglas, A Little Girl in Old Boston[1]:
- She did not run against chairs nor move a stool so that the legs emitted a "screak" of agony, and she could sit still for an hour at a time if she had a book.
Verb
[edit]screak (third-person singular simple present screaks, present participle screaking, simple past and past participle screaked)
- shriek; screech
- 1895 October, Louis de Conte, translated by [Jean François Alden] [pseudonyms; Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain)], “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc. […]”, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, volume XCI, number DXLV, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →ISSN, [book I], part II, chapter XVI, page 746, column 1:
- The awfulest thing was the silence; there wasn't a sound but the screaking of the saddles, the measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by the smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up.
- 1960, John Updike, 'Rabbit, Run', page 64:
- They walk together in silence while behind them a freight train chuffs and screaks through the crossing.
- 1999 July 2, Richard Meltzer, “Vinyl Reckoning”, in Chicago Reader[2]:
- Which'll jar your bones, Jim!...sap your breath...distort your hearing for your own concrete thoughts 'til they screak like the muddled static of distant homily.
- 2003 November 14, Jeff Huebner, “Coming Home”, in Chicago Reader[3]:
- He finally does the hit next to the factory, causing the birds to screak and batter their cages.