How to Use shriek in a Sentence

shriek

1 of 2 verb
  • The birds were shrieking in the trees.
  • She shrieked when she saw a mouse.
  • Bells chimed, whistles shrieked, sirens moaned, planes flew low over the city.
    — Stephen Fried, Smithsonian, 2 May 2017
  • Navratilova shrieked with the thrill of it like a little girl.
    — Sally Jenkins, Anchorage Daily News, 3 July 2023
  • Cut to a young girl shrieking, her face covered in blood.
    — Katie Campione, Deadline, 23 Sep. 2025
  • The girls who had been ordered into the street sobbed and shrieked and begged.
    — James Karst, NOLA.com, 1 Oct. 2017
  • As the bats emerged, hawks shrieked and dove into the swarm to catch dinner.
    — Carolyn Kormann, The New Yorker, 6 Aug. 2019
  • Then, things start to go awry, as a green, shrieking light emanates from the ground.
    — Sara M Moniuszko, USA TODAY, 11 Dec. 2019
  • George loved his first ride–he was led around a paddock on a rein and shrieked with delight.
    — Caroline Hallemann, Town & Country, 23 Aug. 2018
  • The alternative would be to shriek at them for their hypocrisy.
    — Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 3 Mar. 2026
  • Near the launch site, members of the crowd shrieked or stared in disbelief.
    — Miami Herald Archives, Miami Herald, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Eevee, all dimples and blonde curls and large blue eyes, giggled and shrieked in delight.
    — Silvia Foster-Frau, San Antonio Express-News, 23 Dec. 2017
  • The sky is a sheet of blue, a breeze wraps us with clean air, a sandpiper mom shrieks over her hatchlings.
    — Ned Rozell, Alaska Dispatch News, 15 July 2017
  • On a steamy late afternoon this week, dozens of campers splashed and shrieked in a swimming pool.
    — Jonathan M. Pitts, baltimoresun.com, 23 June 2017
  • Lyra spent hours running and spinning through the surf, shrieking with joy when the waves caught her.
    — Brianna Randall, Forbes.com, 30 May 2026
  • Then the younger women began to shriek like a celebrity had appeared in their midst.
    — Ann Doss Helms, charlotteobserver, 28 Feb. 2018
  • When the call finally came, his wife Katie shrieked in delight.
    — Scott Springer, The Enquirer, 22 June 2023
  • Say something loudly and calmly — don’t shriek!
    — Jaclyn Cosgrove, Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2026
  • That's the sound of every Sterek-shipper on earth shrieking in pain.
    — Noelle Devoe, Seventeen, 12 Mar. 2015
  • Fans still shrieked as foul balls bounced from concourse level to concourse level.
    — Jori Epstein, USA TODAY, 2 July 2019
  • His 6-month-old boy is shrieking in the room next door, contributing to the whistling din.
    — Jennifer Senior, New York Times, 20 June 2017
  • Foreign-sounding birds, and so many of them, shrieked my disbelief back at me.
    — Alli Harvey, Anchorage Daily News, 11 Mar. 2023
  • Bitter had fallen to his knees, shrieking; other passers-by did the same.
    — Hanya Yanagihara Kyoko Hamada, New York Times, 10 May 2023
  • Kids shrieking terrible things at him.
    — Literary Hub, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Kershaw turned, squatted and shrieked in reaction to the pitch.
    — Andrew Baggarly, The Mercury News, 1 May 2017
  • Wind was shrieking past her home in Lahaina, a beach town on the west coast of Maui.
    — Jon Schuppe, NBC News, 19 Sep. 2023
  • There was one guy that stood this close to his face for 10 minutes shrieking into his face.
    — WSJ, 14 May 2017
  • Then the lights went out in the store, and one of the clerks shrieked in the dark, and another told her to remain calm.
    — Catherine Lacey, New Yorker, 5 Apr. 2026
  • Kids are shrieking through their favorite splash pads, faces sticky with Bomb Pop juice and joy.
    — Mark Glende, Twin Cities, 2 July 2026
  • Not seeing Pirro shrieking like a banshee would alone be worth it.
    — Monica Hesse, Washington Post, 2 Mar. 2023

shriek

2 of 2 noun
  • The shrieks and shrills filled the room.
    — Liz O'Connell, MSNBC Newsweek, 15 Sep. 2025
  • The growls and snarls of his hounds had turned to yelps and shrieks.
    — John McCoy, Outdoor Life, 12 Nov. 2025
  • All the time the shrieks in the distance.
    — Sara Stridsberg september 15, Literary Hub, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Lowen leans back and shrieks in sheer horror.
    — Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 27 Apr. 2026
  • Passersby hear its shrieks and moans from the road.
    — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 17 Feb. 2026
  • That’s when the thing that couldn’t have been a shriek happened.
    — Murr Brewster, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Jan. 2023
  • Owls were on the hunt, and their shrieks could be heard in the tree canopy high above.
    — Ellen Barry, New York Times, 21 July 2019
  • Each shimmy of his hips drew shrieks from female fans.
    — Brian McCollum, Freep.com, 15 Aug. 2025
  • Back on stage, Close shrieks about midway through the first act.
    — Kate Branch, Vogue, 16 Nov. 2018
  • Brave screams into the mic to shrieks of laughter.
    — Madeleine Marr, Miami Herald, 13 Nov. 2025
  • One of the kids notices the rapper sitting next to her, and shrieks.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 22 Feb. 2018
  • Or, the bursts might be the death shrieks of stars collapsing into black holes.
    — Mark Strauss, National Geographic, 4 Jan. 2017
  • Snowballs arced through the air, followed by shrieks and laughter.
    — Washington Post, 26 Dec. 2019
  • The shell sailed off toward the Russians with a metallic shriek.
    — Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, 11 Aug. 2022
  • Above him an eager playmate lets out a shriek trying to wiggle his way out of his high chair.
    — Whitney Eulich, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Mar. 2018
  • The playful shrieks of children on their lunch break filter through from a nearby school.
    — Jack Moore, Newsweek, 6 June 2017
  • Some people on the sidewalk strolled past without a second glance, some with a shriek.
    — New York Times, 23 Oct. 2020
  • Every stroke brings a deafening shriek, as if there’s a gruesome crime in progress.
    — Bruce Jenkins, San Francisco Chronicle, 19 Feb. 2021
  • Horns, shrieks, middle fingers.
    — Eric D. Lawrence, Freep.com, 19 Apr. 2025
  • But the nannies had to get up in the night at the sound of my shrieks while my parents slumbered with ear-plugs in.
    — Literary Hub, 28 Apr. 2026
  • Henley's voice crested toward a shriek.
    — Carly Tagen-Dye, PEOPLE, 1 May 2026
  • Next up is Pagli, a madwoman with a thin, charred body, fiendish laugh, and ghoulish shrieks.
    — JSTOR Daily, 30 Oct. 2025
  • The car gave a metallic shriek every time someone opened the passenger door.
    — Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star, 11 Oct. 2017
  • Music began to blare through the speakers to our left, and my eardrums rang with the shrieks of other girls in the crowd.
    — Deena Elgenaidi, Longreads, 7 Jan. 2020
  • Zabriskie's shriek wraps the pilot on a new level of fear beyond coherence.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 8 Apr. 2020
  • There is nothing like the shrieks of middle-school kids pulled from class for a special occasion.
    — Thomas Beller, The New Yorker, 18 Feb. 2017
  • Then the engine froze, and the car made this horrible metal-on-metal shriek.
    — Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 28 May 2019
  • Nick teased at the end of the show the band would return in September, which was met with sky-high shrieks.
    — Lyndsey Havens, Billboard, 26 Apr. 2023
  • There are shrieks from soccer games, murmuring in the allées, laughter across the boules lanes.
    — David Coggins, Town & Country, 10 Dec. 2015
  • The sound of rapid gunfire mixed with shrieks and shouts came through, clear and unrelenting, on my radio.
    — David Brown, Esquire, 9 June 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shriek.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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