Screams

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Loud vocal expressions of strong emotion such as fear, excitement, or pain are often described as sudden and intense sounds
2. These intense and abrupt vocal outbursts typically convey a heightened emotional state like terror or joy
3. A powerful and piercing vocalization often signaling distress, surprise, or exhilaration serves to grab attention and communicate feelings

Etymology: "Screams" is the third-person singular present form of the verb "scream," so it describes someone or something that is currently letting out a piercing cry. The verb itself has a more tangled past than its sound suggests. It came into Middle English as "scremen," and its closest relatives are in the Scandinavian and Low Countries languages: Old Norse "skræma" meant "to terrify or scare," while Middle Dutch "scremen" meant "to yell or shout." That mix of meanings hints at where the sound came from: the cry was understood both as the act of shouting and as the effect it had on whoever heard it. Many of its cousins across the North Sea share the same pattern. Swedish "skrämma" still means "to frighten," Danish "skræmme" means "to scare," and West Frisian "skrieme" means "to weep." German "schreien" and Dutch "schreien" both keep the sense of shouting or crying out, so the verb's core has always been vocal distress, with fear and loud noise pulling in different directions across the languages.

Synonyms: shouts, yells, howls, cries, wails

Antonyms: whispers, murmurs, hums, silence, calms