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Screech   Listen
noun
Screech  n.  A harsh, shrill cry, as of one in acute pain or in fright; a shriek; a scream.
Screech bird, or Screech thrush (Zool.), the fieldfare; so called from its harsh cry before rain.
Screech rain.
Screech hawk (Zool.), the European goatsucker; so called from its note. (Prov. Eng.)
Screech owl. (Zool.)
(a)
A small American owl (Scops asio), either gray or reddish in color.
(b)
The European barn owl. The name is applied also to other species.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Screech" Quotes from Famous Books



... still begin and never end the shout and scream and buzz? Oh, never any where, save in desert groves Brazilian, Was ever heard such endless and aimless gabble yet. For there the tribes of monkeys to the number of a million, Screech and chatter without ceasing, from the sunrise to the set. Rap! rap! rap! To quell the rising clamor; Order! order! order! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various

... cars rolled lightly on the single track; there was no rumble of wheels, no tremor of the ground. The engine-driver, running past the Casa Viola with the salute of an uplifted arm, checked his speed smartly before entering the yard; and when the ear-splitting screech of the steam-whistle for the brakes had stopped, a series of hard, battering shocks, mingled with the clanking of chain-couplings, made a tumult of blows and shaken fetters under the vault of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... boys then jumped and began beating up the sacks violently. But as suddenly, a pair of wings flapped up in their faces with a whirring sound, and a barn-owl began to screech madly as she rose and flew through a hole ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... up of hands and eyes, speaking always in that loud, shrill, theatrical tone with which a puppet-master supplies his puppets. I all the time sat like a mouse. My father asked, "Which of those ladies, madam, do you think is your sister authoress?"—"I am no physiognomist"—in a screech—"but I do imagine that to be the lady," bowing as she sat almost to the ground, and pointing to Mrs. Edgeworth. "No, guess again."—"Then that must be she" bowing to Charlotte. "No."—"Then this lady," looking forward to see what sort of an animal ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... showed their delight at getting away from this God-forsaken, tedious outpost, made themselves comfortable in the shade afforded by the sail, and began to chat with the crew of the Mindoro about the commonplaces of military service. A shrill screech from the whistle of the Mindoro resounded from the mountain side as a farewell greeting to the little troop that was climbing slowly upward, followed by the baggage-carts. The Mindoro cast off from the pier, and, having ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff

... followed the striking of Tom. There was a screech from the brake bands and the car came to a ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman

... the talking and laughing and the formless progress of the mob hushed the nearer night voices of the fields and woods; but from a distance the shuddering cry of a screech-owl could be heard; and the melancholy call of a killdee in a pasture beside the creek. The people, friends and foes together, made their way unlighted except by the tin lantern which some one had caught from where it stood on ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells

... hand, taking some comfort because the night was very favourable to their project. The snow had melted, and a great gale blew from the sou'-west, boisterous but not cold, which caused the tall elms that stood about to screech and groan like things alive. In such a wind as this they were sure that they would not be heard, nor could they be seen beneath that murky, starless sky, while the rain which fell between the gusts would wash out the footprints ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... and his balance perfect, and the red fire blazed in his eyes and his big muscles quivered. Then he hurled himself forward—one, two, a dozen mighty bounds through flying snow, and he landed with a screech on the dome of a beaver house. There he jumped about, shaking an imaginary beaver like a fury, and gave another screech that made one's spine tingle. That over, he stood very still, looking off over the beaver roofs that dotted ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... and the cry of mun, and the screech of mun! Oh, sir, up to the very heavens! And the king he screeched right out like any maid, 'Oh my gentlemen, oh my gallant men!' and as she lay on her beam-ends, sir, and just a-settling, the very last souls I seen ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... on that—the thing will go off. See here—yeep! yeep!" as I spat on it and hurled it into the ditch. With a yell and a screech a Comanche might have been proud of, that darkey "lit out." As he ran he turned his head, and seeing me dancing a war-dance to work off the extra hilarity which his fright had occasioned, he pulled up and joined ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride

... an interval of the faint, persistent rustling of branch and leaf, varied by the screech of a distant cockatoo and the nearer cry of a crow, as the dusk deepened into night as expeditiously as on the stage. Vanheimert was not awed by the quiet voice to which he had been listening. It lacked the note of violence which he understood; it even lulled him into a belief that he would still ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung

... deadly missiles through the passage, windows, and sides of the house, in every direction, instantly followed the ferocious order. And, in the expiring light, the fated French was seen to leap into the air; and then, spinning giddily round and round an instant, fall, with a low, short screech, prostrate on the floor; while mingled groans, rising from a half dozen others along the passage, told also the fearful effect of the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... Imagine the air space above filled, instead of air, with a mixture of stenches of oil and filth, unwashed human bodies, and foul clothing. Conceive a perpetual clang and clash of machinery like the screech of ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... bird, probably associated with the screech-owl (Aluco candidus) of the Philippines. It is a bird of ill-omen. Compare A. Newton, Dictionary ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,

... him! nothing but screech-owls? do, do, call again; you had best part them now in the sweetness of their love!—I'll be hanged if this AEneas be the son of Venus, for all his bragging. Honest Venus was a punk; would she ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden

... Charles de Grainberg, a Frenchman, who has been there sketching ever since the year eighteen-hundred and ten. He has, moreover, written a super-magnificent description of the ruin, in which he says, that during the day only birds of prey disturb it with their piercing cries, and at night, screech-owls, and other fallow deer. These are his own words. You must buy his book and ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... with suspicion, conscious that his business was unfit for any other eye. As He stood in hesitation, He heard the melancholy shriek of the screech-Owl: The wind rattled loudly against the windows of the adjacent Convent, and as the current swept by him, bore with it the faint notes of the chaunt of Choristers. He opened the door cautiously, as if fearing to be overheard: He entered; and closed it again after him. Guided by ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... A child, a clown, a vulgar person—and there are such in all ranks—will prefer flaring reds and blues and yellows heaped together in staring contrast. A thrush or a blackbird is but a soberly clad creature by the side of macaws and paroquets; but the one has a song and the others have only a screech. The gentle virtues are the truly Christian virtues—patience and meekness and long-suffering and sympathy and readiness to efface oneself for the sake of God ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... he said. "That's the one I told you about the other night. It isn't the same kind as we saw in old Dawson's oast-house. They screech. Get out, you old mouser! ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... desperate situation, for loud thumps at the door proclaimed the advent of the visitors, who seemed likely to be provided with a decidedly Barmecide feast. Delia, however, had an inspiration. She stooped on hands and knees and foraged under the beds, announcing by a jubilant screech that she had discovered the lost property. It did not take long to move away the stones and to transfer the plates from the floor to the table, after which three much flustered hostesses opened ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... who had been growling to himself in a cross way gave a sharp bark and flew at the yellow hen, who ruffled her feathers and let out such an angry screech that ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... State of Kentucky One that was reckoned a witch—full of strange spells and devices; Nightly she wandered the woods, searching for charms voodooistic— Scorpions, lizards, and herbs, dormice, chameleons, and plantains! Serpents and caw-caws and bats, screech-owls and crickets and adders— These were the guides of that witch through the dank deeps of the forest. Then, with her roots and her herbs, back to her cave in the morning Ambled that hussy to brew ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... many's the word o' good advice she gave it, as it sat in its usual place beside the fire fore-nint her. But it wos all thrown away, it wos, for there wosn't another pig in all the length o' Ireland as had sich a will o' its own; and it had a screech, too, when it wosn't plaazed, as bate all the steam whistles in the world, it did. I've often moralated on that same, and I've noticed that, as it is wid pigs, so it is wid men and women—some of them at laste—the more advice ye give them, the less ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... rabbits and squirrels. Sometimes a particularly doughty woodsman would report that there were wildcat tracks about his trap; but none of us ever saw a wildcat, though Enoch Haver, whose father's father had heard a wildcat scream, and had taught the boy its cry, would hide in a hollow sycamore and screech until the little boys were terrified and would not go alone to their traps for days. In summer, boys, usually from the country, or from a neighbouring town, caught 'coons, and dragged them chained through alleys for our boys to see, and 'Dory Paine ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... soul! is that her? No need to ask! How strange her voice sounds! Screech! screech! and she so low, sweet-spoken, when she's well! Thou must keep up heart, old boy, and not look ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... wouldn't hesitate a moment, but really isn't "Cussed Be Canaan" too old? You know that lemon, our African brother, juicy as he was in his day, has been squeezed dry. Why howl about his wrongs after said wrongs have been redressed? Why screech about the "damnable spirit of Cahst" when the victim thereof sits at the first table, and his oppressor mildly takes, in hash, what he leaves? You see, friend Twain, the Fifteenth Amendment busted "Cussed ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... us think the Great Spirit means to help us, and that we shall kill all the pale- faces. When we get further into your settlements, we do not expect to meet many such braves as you. They tell us we shall then find men who will run, and screech like women. It will not be a pleasure to torment such men. We had rather torment a bold warrior, like you, who makes us admire him for his manliness. We love our squaws, but not in the warpath. They are best in the lodges; here we ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... sickening jar and the blast cut off. The ship groaned and seemed to twist, then was still. It was the worst landing Duke had known, but they were obviously down. A second later he heard the port screech open and the thump ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey

... a joyous grab at the horn, which he immediately put to his lips; but before it could emit its ear-piercing screech, Maurice struck ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... boiled in, and as I felt kinder lonesome, I thought I would come across, and sleep by your shanty fire." The old man enquired why I seemed so much terrified, and my brothers told him that I would persist in calling a screech-owl, a catamount. Old Rufus did not often laugh, but he laughed heartily on this occasion, and truly it was no wonder, and when he corroborated what my brothers had already told me, I decided that what he said must be true. His presence at once ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell

... administered to these young creatures many times a day. An unnatural and artificial thirst is first awakened in these infants by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies, sardines, red herrings, shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that description of diet; and when they screech for drink, in accents that might melt a heart of stone, which they do constantly (I allude to screeching, not to melting), this liquid is introduced into their too confiding stomachs. At such an early age, and to so great an extent, is this custom of provoking thirst, then quenching it with ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens

... made tracks for this yere paraira, as I diskivered, when I got to the top o' that risin' ground yonder, some elk a feedin' down hyar. There was a herd of seven of 'em or more, an' soon as I gets near enuf I lets drive at 'em; and just then, hullabaloo! I heart a screech like somethin' awful, an' a Injun starts up, just like a deer a walkin' on his ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... the beldame, with a screech that made Lord William start back. "Spells have I none that can bind her. I would she were in my power; but she hath spell for spell. Nought would avail thee, for she is beyond my reach; her ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... to keep off the evil eye. If a weasel crosses his path, he stops, and either throws three pebbles into the road, or, with the innate selfishness of fear, lets some one else go before him, and attract to himself the harm which may ensue. He has a similar dread of a screech-owl, whom he compliments in the name of its mistress, Pallas Athene. If he finds a serpent in his house, he sets up an altar to it. If he pass at a four-cross-way an anointed stone, he pours oil on it, kneels down, and adores it. If a rat has nibbled one of his sacks ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley

... Hen was almost the busiest of the whole company, for she was laying eggs. As soon as ever she had had one she would get up on a low branch and screech, "Catch it! Catch it! Catch ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... skeins of dyed worsted put out to dry; there, on ropes, dance clean-washed shirts; higher up, on a shelf, volumes display their freshly marbled edges; women sing, husbands whistle, children shout; the carpenter saws his planks, a copper-turner makes the metal screech; all kinds of industries combine to produce a noise which the number of ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... had been tossing all out, very uneasy, till about three o'clock in the morning, when he fell into a sweet sleep. His wife, weary with anxiety and watching, was trying to get a nap in the easy chair, when, suddenly, close by them, as if in the very room, came an indescribable screech, an unearthly, long, shrill cock-a-doodle-do yell, such as only a fancy feathered ...
— Who Spoke Next • Eliza Lee Follen

... lion in there to-night," he said; "that's what delayed me. If I see another one, I'll jab him with one of these knitting needles. Hear that screech-owl? He sounds like the Kaiser'll feel next year.—Do ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... costs," I yelled, "if the car sticks here it will have to be left." To lighten her a little I jumped out and pushed up behind for all I was worth. Mud was flying in all directions; we were nearly across; another twenty yards. With a final roll and screech she bounded off on to the road. I jumped aboard again and up the road we shot towards Mons. If the Hun patrols had been anywhere near they must have thought a battalion of Tanks were on their track, for the noise my old "bus" made getting across that ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins

... just shot. And at another time she plunged into the water and brought up in her claws a fish, which she carried away to her nest. The Barn Owl is white, and does not hoot, at least by many this is thought to be the case. The Brown Owl is the hooting or screech owl, and makes a ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")

... glittering snow as it had done day by day for thousands of years. A human figure—or it might be superhuman, for his mien seemed more than mortal—lifted from the crag, to which he hung suspended by massy gyves and rivets, eyes mournful with the presentiment of pain. The eagle's screech clanged on the wind, as with outstretched neck he stooped earthward in ever narrowing circles; his huge quills already creaked in his victim's ears, whose flesh crept and shrank, and involuntary convulsions agitated his hands and feet. Then happened what all these millenniums had ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett

... flowers, and in this open a man was kneeling beside a fire no larger than his two hands, and at his side, watching him, stood a girl with two braids of black hair rippling down her back. It was Nawadlook who turned first and saw who it was with Mary Standish, and from his right came an odd little screech that only one person in the world could make, and that was Keok. She dropped the armful of sticks she had gathered for the fire and made straight for him, while Nawadlook, taller and less like a wild creature in the manner ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... uncomfortable, but it is not well adapted to a long journey as it is slow and toilsome. When the mud is deep, progress is almost impossible. Moreover, the labour of the barrow-men constantly excites the sympathy of the humane traveller and the dismal screech of the wheel revolving upon its unoiled axle is worse than the rasp of filing a saw. The Chinese depend upon the shrieks of the wheel to tell them how the axle is wearing, but the disconsolate foreigner finds that his nerves wear out much faster ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... female-beautifier, and univarsal musical machine! When they all got assembled, I ondid the machine; they wer still as death! When I sot it up, they wer breathless with wonderment; when I started it, they gin a gineral screech of delight. Then I sot deown and played 'em old hund'erd, and every gal in the room vowed right eout she'd have one made straight! O-o-o! yeou'd a died to seen the excitement that instrer-ment made in Jargon Institoot. The ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... men, and in so doing received Henri's heel and the full weight of his elephantine body on its fore paw. The horrible and electric yell that instantly issued from his agonized throat could only be compared, as Joe Blunt expressed it, "to the last dyin' screech o' a bustin' steam biler!" We cannot say that the effect was startling, for these backwoodsmen had been born and bred in the midst of alarms, and were so used to them that a "bustin' steam biler" itself, unless it had blown them fairly off their legs, would not have startled them. But the effect, ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... running up the stairs armed with clubs and revolvers and tried to get through the barred door at the stair head, but were checked by the captain, who was a wise tactician. The men went to their cells, and there began to howl and screech like a crazy menagerie, and kept it up for hours. Twenty or thirty of the supposed ringleaders were sent to the dark holes; but the revolt was not checked until the warden personally promised reforms, and gave his word that no further punishments ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... sought to raise the catch, however, it resisted. Evidently it had not been lifted for many years, and had rusted to the staple. Carefully Alex threw his weight upward against it. It still refused to move. He pushed harder, and suddenly it gave with a piercing screech. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs

... inspiration, "like God's omnipotence, not limited to the few writers claimed by the Jews, Christians and Mohammedans, but as extensive as the race;"[121] or perhaps as extensive as all creation, and leading us to regard even "the solemn notes of the screech owl" as inspired.[122] What manner of use could the Bible be to an ignorant soul groping its way to truth and holiness, or to a dying sinner hastening to the judgment seat of God, if it were true, that "the Bible's own teaching on the subject is ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... Dad heard my snake rattle his self in the box, and he stepped on my prairie dog and yelled murder, and he got into my box of horned toads, and my young badger scratched dad's bare feet, and a young eagle I had began to screech, and dad began to have a fit. He said the air seemed fixed, and he opened the window, and sat on the window sill in his night shirt, and a fireman came up a ladder from the outside and turned the ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck

... of it," said Strout. "In the old days, kings and queens and princes used to search for modest merit, and when found they rewarded it. Nowadays modest merit has to holler and yell and screech to make folks look ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin

... and, closing his eyes, opened them suddenly. The mountain must have been too near to show in outline now; it had probably melted into the general landscape. There was just an even, solid blackness all about him. The wind moaned, and somewhere, high and far off, he heard the screech of an eagle. But at least the rain did not assail him as it had done. This, however, was small comfort. He had lost, failed, and ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... cross-roads in the wood. There he put down the creature, seated himself on a stone, and waited. But every time he looked at the creature he nearly fell to the ground with terror. If only a breeze sprung up, it went through the marrow of his bones, and if only the screech-owl cried afar off, he thought he heard the croaking of the creature, and the blood froze in his veins. Morning came at last, and he seized the creature, and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby

... he goes sneaking about the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is robbing birds'-nests, and he is very anxious that nothing should be said about it, but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry "Thief, thief!" as he. One December morning a troop of jays discovered a little screech owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree near my house. How they found the owl out is a mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but they did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. I suspect the bluebirds ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... The winds screech down from the open west, And the thunders beat and break On the amethyst Of your rugged breast,— But you ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... "Arise!"—At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the dark, dismal forests resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom forms of the spirit. Like cabris [80] when white wolves pursue, fled the four yet remaining Dakotas; Through forest and fen-land they flew, and wild ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... Harry the worse for not being the least of a milksop. Manners, you see, were looser a hundred years ago; tongues were vastly more free-and-easy; names were named, and things were done, which we should screech now to hear mentioned. Yes, madam, we are not as our ancestors were. Ought we not to thank the Fates that have improved our morals so prodigiously, and made us so ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... terrified child. Dymock and Shanty looked at each other, and Shanty said, "It is the beggar woman. She is still skulking about, I will be bound; hark!" he added, "listen! she will be stilling the child, she's got under the cart." But the child continued to screech, and there was neither threat nor blandishment ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]

... clouds that was comin' up didn't look as if they was goin' to smooth it down any. There was a kind o' brassy look over every thin', and when the wind began to rise, it warn't with no nat'ral sound, but a kind of screech to it, on'arthly like. Wal, thar! the wind did rise, and it riz to stay. In half an hour it was blowin' half a gale; in an hour it blew a gale, and as tough a one (barrin' cyclones) as ever I see. 'T had like to ha' blow me off my pins, half a dozen times. Then nat'rally ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards

... corrected; thank you, Miss Blake. You heard a screech, in short, and you hurried across the hall, and found Miss Elmsdale in a fainting condition, on the floor of the ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell

... "I'm in burning pain all withinside of me, Thady." I could not speak, but my shister asked him would he have this thing or t'other to do him good? "No," says he, "nothing will do me good no more," and he gave a terrible screech with the torture he was in—then again a minute's ease—"brought to this by drink," says he; "where are all the friends?—where's Judy?—Gone, hey? Ay, Sir Condy has been a fool all his days," said he; and there was the last word he spoke, and died. He had but a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... Willie, indignantly. "They are neither one nor the other. If she isn't black she's near it; and I never said she had red eyes and a blue tongue; but if you two were to hear her screech and howl, as I have, you'd confess fast enough that she was a witch." And Willie turned back to his book with the air of an ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston

... don), you have no special taste for a plump landlord breathing passionately and genially upon your very cheek while you strive to satisfy a legitimate appetite, you may burst into a sudden unpremeditate but uncontrollable screech of mingled laughter and dismay, meanwhile almost falling backward in your chair in an effort to evade the steady pant and ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... over his putrefying carcass, and the screech of the vulture, mingled with the angry growl of the wolf, as they contended for the remains of the man of crimes in their wild fury and ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison

... screech. I threw up her clothes, for she was still on her back on the bed, I didn't see her cunt, for I was between her legs, and bent over her, lifted her legs, and pressed hard down on her belly, her clothes on it ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... my dream, yonder is the ancient gate with the stone scrolls on each side.... The house is not circular, it is true, but square ... but that is a matter of no importance.... I knock at the gate, I knock once, twice, thrice, ever more and more loudly.... The gate opens slowly, with a heavy screech, as though yawning. In front of me stands a young serving-maid with a dishevelled head and sleepy eyes. She ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... ground at such a clip that on the third day, with screech of whistle and clang of bell, we slowed at Oakland pier, where a crowd was cheering like the end of a race—which it was—and kodak fiends were underfoot as if ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower

... were avenged. The hen, feverish and unhappy from the loss of her hope of progeny, had gone to the but to sip a little water. Tommy, appearing on the wall above her, startled her. She, flying up with a screech, startled Tommy, and became ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... fish which the hungry gull had spied. Before he reached the water he saw his mistake, and wheeling swiftly as only a gull can, he flapped back again into the air, uttering a screech ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown

... cameo against the shadow of the cut-banks. At his feet another half-breed is wrapped in his blanket, and from here to the bow the boat is strewn with these human cocoons. The reclining friend breaks the silence with a word or two of Cree in an undertone to the steersman, a screech-owl cries, from high overhead drops down that sound which never fails to stir vagrant blood—the "unseen flight of strong hosts prophesying as they go." It is the wild geese feeling the old spring fret even ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... drinkers of these welcome stimulants; we seldom halt drinking until we have each had six or seven cups. We have also been able to provide ourselves with music, which, though harsh, is better than none. I mean the musical screech of parrots ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... to be ominous, and dreaded the future event enchained to them. That the night owl should screech before the noon-day sun, that the hard-winged bat should wheel around the bed of beauty, that muttering thunder should in early spring startle the cloudless air, that sudden and exterminating blight should fall on the tree and shrub, were unaccustomed, but physical events, less ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... Help this rascal to set up the coach," said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to stand off when a poor woman ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that? A cry in the night! The weird, haunting screech of an owl! He ridiculed himself for the sudden wild thumping of his heart. But would they never call him? This suspense was tearing at the very roots of ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... always awoke in Anne at the sight and expression of injustice flared suddenly upwards. Facing the still satisfied woman, who now drew a chair across the flagged floor with the screech of its wooden legs upon ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone

... returns of the season await my friend. May the thorns of care never beset his path! May peace be an inmate of his bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his soul! May the blood-hounds of misfortune never track his steps, nor the screech-owl of sorrow alarm his dwelling! May enjoyment tell thy hours, and pleasure number thy days, thou friend of the bard! "Blessed be he that blesseth thee, and cursed ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... mementoes of the same lady in the cabinet adorning the recess; and while Shirley was stooping to examine the missal and the rosary on the inlaid shelf, and while the Misses Nunnely indulged in a prolonged screech, guiltless of expression, pure of originality, perfectly conventional and absolutely unmeaning, Sir Philip stooped too, and whispered a few hurried sentences. At first Miss Keeldar was struck so still you might have fancied that whisper a charm which had ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... were working like the flying pistons of a locomotive, and his bush hair and beard were streaming aft in the breeze as he neared the corner. Suddenly he stopped, turned about, and dashed right into the foremost of the crowd, letting out a screech and ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... Loyalty's Decoy-pond, each Pops up his head, as fir'd with British blood, Hears once again the Ministerial screech, 45 And once more seeks the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... trying to soothe Paquita's intense excitement and infuse a little courage into her, was too much amazed to speak; and in another moment our visitors were in the room. Paquita started up tearful and trembling; then her two young friends, after staring at her for a few moments, delivered a screech of astonishment and rushed into her arms, and all three were locked together for some time in a ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... would listen with many a shake of the head to the stories Listing related of his life on the roads, especially of the nights the fine ones, in which one lay on the dry grass beneath the twinkling stars, or in the forest under a beech in the branches of which the screech-owl was calling; and of the wretched, rainy, cold nights of late autumn. Then one would pull a few trusses of straw out of a stack and creep shivering into the hole, which would gradually become wet through from the dripping ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein

... gave, though not so loud as a screech owl, and then she tottered, swayed, and lost her senses. If she'd fallen to the left no harm had overtook her; but to the right she fell and dropped unconscious, face forward ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... sob rising to a scream, as if the old building had found voice and protested against invasion, caused a recoil of the invaders. Girls brought up in neighborly relations with the wilderness, however, could be only a moment terrified by the screech-owl. But at no previous time in its history, not even when it was captured as a fort, had the Jesuit College inclosed such a cluster of wildly beating hearts. Had light been turned on the group, it would have shown every ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... screech of surprise and pain the mate crumpled in the far corner of the forecastle, rammed halfway beneath a bunk by the force of the terrific blow. Like a tiger Billy Byrne was after him, and dragging the man out into the center of the floor space he beat ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... the strand, They only, each by each; Home, her home, was close at hand, Utterly out of reach. Her mother in the chimney nook Heard a startled sea-gull screech, But never turned her head to look Towards the darkening beach: Neighbors here and neighbors there Heard one scream, as if a bird Shrilly screaming cleft the air:— That was ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... which continued all night long. First, there was a drum perpetually beating, announcing rudely enough the approaching nuptials; then there was a cricket singing shrill notes at my head; and then there was the screech-owl making the valley of Tintalous ring again with its hideous shriek. Add to all, between the roll of the big noisy drum, the cries and uproar of the people. This morning there are groups of people squatting all about. Two maharees are riding round and round one group. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... unanswerable fire was an ordeal for a force which is retreating. A retirement may very rapidly become a rout under such circumstances. It was with some misgivings that the officers saw their men quicken their pace and glance back over their shoulders at the whine and screech of the shell. They were still some miles from home, and the plain was open. What could be done to give ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... After the sound had acted on his organs of hearing, and he had connected, perhaps, some ideas with it, tears began to flow from the dead man's eyes. Finally, when, after a short prayer for his poor soul, they proceeded to hack off his head, the corpse uttered a screech, and turned and rolled just as if it had been alive, and the grave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... crushing phial after phial. The boy, being light, was strewed afar, but in a squatting posture; so that they sat in a sequence, like graduated specimens, the smaller howling. But soon the doctor's face filled with horror, and he uttered a far louder and unearthly screech, and kicked and struggled with wonderful agility for one ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... cave, the cub saw the lynx-mother. The hair rippled up along his back at the sight. Here was fear, and it did not require his instinct to tell him of it. And if sight alone were not sufficient, the cry of rage the intruder gave, beginning with a snarl and rushing abruptly upward into a hoarse screech, was convincing ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... on his legs to run—see how the little critter goes ahead arter that. A kurnel (I don't mean a Kurnel of militia, for we don't vally that breed o' cattle nothing—they do nothing but strut about and screech all day, like peacocks), but a kurnel of grain, when sowed, will stool into several shoots, and each shoot hear many kurnels, and will multiply itself thus—four times one is four, and four times twenty-five is one hundred (you ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... meetings of young men and maids I many times am, and when they are in the midst of all their good cheer, I come in, in some fearful shape, and affright them, and then carry away their good cheer, and eat it with my fellow fairies. 'Tis I that do, like a screech-owl cry at sick men's windows, which makes the hearers so fearful, that they say, that the sick person cannot live. Many other ways have I to fright the simple, but the understanding man I cannot move to fear, because he knows I have no ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... Marat was, like Robespierre, a coward. Repeatedly denounced in the assembly, he skulked instead of defending himself, and lay concealed in some obscure garret or cellar among his cut-throats, until a storm appeared, when, like a bird of ill omen, his death-screech was again heard. Such was the strange and fatal triumvirate, in which the same degree of cannibal cruelty existed under different aspects. Danton murdered to glut his rage; Robespierre to avenge his injured ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various

... noise for some time. Then she plucked a blade of grass, stretched it across a hollow between her two thumbs, and, when Seppi was not looking, blew with all her might right by his ear! It made a fearful screech, which echoed and reechoed until it seemed as if the very air had been broken into a ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... every hundred metres until the tenth rose into the proud kilometre stone proclaiming the distance to the next stately town, rang too with the sound of British voices, and the tramp of British feet, and the clatter of British transport, and the screech and whir of cars, revealing as they passed the flash of red and gold of the British staff. Yet the finely cultivated land remained to show that it was France; and the little whitewashed villages; the cure, in shovel-hat and rusty cassock; ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke

... and of these almost all old, hideous, and of malignant aspect, their grim and sinister features looking ghastly in the lurid light. Above them, amid the smoke and steam, wheeled bat and flitter-mouse, horned owl and screech-owl, in mazy circles. The weird assemblage chattered together in some wild jargon, mumbling and muttering spells and incantations, chanting fearfully with hoarse, cracked voices a wild chorus, and anon breaking into a loud and long-continued peal of laughter. ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... how can fear sit and hear as love hears it grief's heart's cracked grate's screech? Chance lets the gate sway that opens on hate's way and shews on shame's beach Crouched like an imp sly change watch sweet love's shrimps ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... door turned; he could not distinguish it in the uncertain light, yet he knew it was turning by a peculiarly faint screech—almost so faint as to be indistinguishable. One would not notice it except at the dead ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... wake in himself intirely. But, as cute as he was, he was out here, for he tuk the wrong one. "Here's to your good health, Terence," says he; "an' now pull like the very divil." An' with that he lifted the bottle of holy wather, but it was hardly to his mouth, whin he let a screech out, you'd think the room id fairly split with it, an' made one chuck that sent the leg clane aff his body in my father's hands. Down wint the squire over the table, an' bang wint my father half-way across the room on his back, upon the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... through the narrow streets and lanes below. How small men seem, how like a swarm of ants sweltering in endless confusion on their tiny hill! How petty seems the work on which they are hurrying and skurrying! How childishly they jostle against one another and turn to snarl and scratch! They jabber and screech and curse, but their puny voices do not reach up here. They fret, and fume, and rage, and pant, and die; "but I, mein Werther, sit above it all; I am alone with ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... Lyddy." She did not kiss the girl again, or touch her hand. Their decent and sparing adieux had been made in the house. As Miss Maria returned to the door, the hens, cowering conscience-stricken under the lilacs, sprang up at sight of her with a screech of guilty alarm, and flew out ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... of death," he muttered, grimly. Then at last, in uncontrollable irritation, he shouted, "Curse you, begone!" and the ill-boding bird flapped away with a startled screech, that to Van Berg's morbid fancy was like a demon's laugh. But it alighted again a little further off and drove him half wild with its dismal cries. At last there was a radiance among the trees on the eastern side of the ravine, and ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... there to the prevalent pace. They add to the general noise the shuddering bursts of their swift percussions, and make the soul shrink from a forecast of what the aeroplane may be when it shall come hurtling overhead with some peculiar screech as yet unimagined. The motor plays an even more prominent part in the country than in London, especially in those remnants of time which the English call weekends, and which stretch from Friday afternoon to the next Monday morning. It is within these limits ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... again. Wood dust flew as hinge screws gave with a loud screech. The door was just hanging now. One more smash! It flew inward and Red and Brad charged, ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine

... screech of this, the most ominous of all birds, is still heard with alarm; and he remains with us, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various

... the big clouds slowly sail; A faint breeze lingers in the rustling beech; Atop the withered oak with vagrant speech The brawling crows call down the sleepy vale; Unseen the glad cicadas trill their tale Of deep content in changeless vibrant screech, And where the old fence rambles out of reach, The drowsy lizard hugs the shaded rail. Warm odors from the hayfield wander by, Afar the homing reaper's noontide tune Floats on the mellow stillness like a sigh; One butterfly, ghost of a vanished June, Soars dimly where ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove

... hat, engaged in a deep confabulation with a boy in corduroys who sprawled beside him. The horse, catching sight of the motionless "thing" opposite me, at once stood still and snorted violently. The man cried out, "Hey! hey! What's the matter with ye, beast?" And then in an hysterical kind of screech, "Great God! What's yon figure that I see? ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell

... So, he could call yet! He was calling after her to stop. Never! . . . She tore through the night, past the startled group of seaweed-gatherers who stood round their lantern paralysed with fear at the unearthly screech coming from that fleeing shadow. The men leaned on their pitchforks staring fearfully. A woman fell on her knees, and, crossing herself, began to pray aloud. A little girl with her ragged skirt full of slimy seaweed began to sob despairingly, ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... one-eyed man, when the rats went scurrying through the hold. She wasn't pink now; her color had turned to ashy yellow and her heart to ashes of roses. Girard could face the wind of the North, but a crying woman on a ship at anchor, whose rusty chains groaned to the dismal screech of tugging cordage, undid him. A lesser man—a devil-may-care fellow—could have met the issue. Girard, practical, sensible, silent, was no mate for prettiness, plump and pink. He should have wedded a widow, who could have passed him a prehensile ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... down the path behind him, and from a solitary apple-tree, standing like a lonely ghost in the middle of the field, came the woo of a screech owl—twice. It was answered—twice—from a clump of elder-bushes that grew in a fence-corner fifty yards west of the pasture bars. Then the barrel of a squirrel rifle issued, lifted out of the white elder-blossoms, and lay along the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... words ended in a sort of screech of astonishment and recognition, as a hard hand was laid upon his shoulder, and ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... and by-play as fantastic as the music. The pianist seems to get excited and to want to prove himself a Hans von Bulow of rapid execution. The fiddler weaves excitedly over his fiddle. The cornetist toots in a screech like a car-engine whistle. The movements of the dancers grow licentious and more and more rapid. They have begun the Cancan. Feet go up. Legs are exhibited in wild abandon. Hats fly off. There are occasional exhibitions of nature that would put Adam and Eve ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... really coming to blows. We never had the pleasure of seeing a stranger among us. We might hear him approaching, nearer and nearer, till, just as the eager listener fancied he might alight in sight, there would burst upon the air the screech of a jay or the war-cry of a robin, accompanied by the precipitate flight of the whole clan, and away would go the stranger in a most sensational manner, followed by outcries and clamor enough to drive ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... fleeces, and with garlands crown'd: Oft, when she visited this lonely dome, Strange voices issued from her husband's tomb; She thought she heard him summon her away, Invite her to his grave, and chide her stay. Hourly 't is heard, when with a boding note The solitary screech owl strains her throat, And, on a chimney's top, or turret's height, With songs obscene disturbs the silence of the night. Besides, old prophecies augment her fears; And stern Aeneas in her dreams appears, Disdainful as by day: she seems, alone, To wander in her sleep, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... A screech owl called and startled her; Tory had a sudden attack of nerves; running ahead a few yards, she stumbled. The ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook

... nor the birds, their fellow-tenants of the burrow—the latter perched upon the summits of the mounds, and one after another flying off with a defiant screech as the horsemen drew near—these, after an hour spent in a slow but diligent advance, at length, and without accident, ride clear of the biscachera, and out upon the smooth ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid

... furriners—aye, half a dozen some do say, though I wouldn't go so far as that myself—and at the last some of them turned tail and bolted back. The ship's boy, what was in the shrouds, saw 'em on the run and set up a screech: 'Hooray! hooray!' That was all we wanted. We hoorayed too; and went at 'em in such a slap-bang go-to-glory way that in a brace of shakes there wasn't a Frenchman, a Dutchman, nor a Moor on board. They cut the grapnels and floated clear, ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... wice; and begor, 't was like the day of gineral jedgment. Thin he tore off a black veil that was on the crucifix, and he threw it on the althar, and he held up the crucifix in the air, and he let a screech out of him that you could hear ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... was frightfully stung. He rubbed his face with both sticky paws. The sharp stings came thicker and faster, and he wildly clawed the air. At last he forgot to hold on to the branch any longer, and with a screech he tumbled to ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman

... Girardi made me screech with laughter. He is as funny as my father-in-law is mournful—a higher compliment to his art I cannot pay. Of course, actor-like, he appreciated an Imperial Highness' applause and looked up to my box every little while. I wish, though, he hadn't acknowledged my plaudits ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer

... Bute. Deep Horror held her wide domain; The sky in sullen drops of rain Forewept the morn, and through the air, Which, opening, laid its bosom bare, Loud thunders roll'd, and lightning stream'd; The owl at Freedom's window scream'd, The screech-owl, prophet dire, whose breath Brings sickness, and whose note is death; 160 The churchyard teem'd, and from the tomb, All sad and silent, through the gloom The ghosts of men, in former times, Whose public virtues were their crimes, Indignant stalk'd; sorrow and rage Blank'd ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... ball and chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little.... This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... I am too tired to write—I mean too lazy.... No warhorse ever panted for the rush of battle more than I for outside work. I love to make history ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... among the pigs, biting their ears, and making them race about, squealing piteously. Then he seized hold of the bundle of rags containing the black baby, and began to drag it over the ground, to the no small astonishment of the baby, who added his screech to the charivari of the pigs. With loud shouts of laughter, Mr. Jackson cheered on the rough animal, and was so much entertained by the scene, that he seemed to have forgotten the traveller entirely. When at last his eye ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... carefully opened the shutters and peered out, but he could distinguish nothing in the intense blackness. After listening a moment and hearing no sound, he closed the shutters and went back to his work. The priest waited until he again heard the screech of the file before he dared to move. This action of Pomponio recalled him to himself, and the responsibility resting on him regarding the ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... is that I had no idea that iron traction engine wanted to marry my daughter or anybody's daughter. The tactless beast got up steam and proposed for her the day after I had offered him the living. He had never given so much as a preliminary screech on the subject, never blown a horn to show what his horrid intentions were—I only hope that if I had known I should still have had the moral courage to appoint him. The Archbishop assures me I should—but I doubt it. I was ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... the waxed silk all ready and chosen the right-sized needle and I'll promise not to jump or screech more than I can help. We'll make a tiny lead-pencil dot right in the middle of the lobe, then you place the needle on it, shut your eyes, and JAB HARD! I expect to faint, but when I 'come to,' we can decide which of us will pull the ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... year, made an excursion of some days. On the very morrow after their return, while they were darting to and fro close to Cuvier's window, to whose presence they had become accustomed, and which did not in the least incommode them, a screech-owl, that seemed to fall from above, pounced upon the male, seized him in his talons, and was already bearing him away, when Cuvier took down his gun, which was within reach, primed and cocked it, and fired at the owl; the fellow, mortally ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... fiddlers. Fellow-musicians, we are sorry that it hath been your ill-hap to have had us in your company, that are nothing but screech-owls and night-ravens, able to mar the purest melody: and, besides, our company is so ominous that, where we are, thence liberality is packing. Our resolution is therefore to wish you well, and to bid you farewell. Come, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... with the open back. And Carl he just up and threw a big eel into the back. When poor old Mrs. Carr was driving up the hill by Ingleside that eel came squirming out between her feet. She thought it was a snake and she just give one awful screech and stood up and jumped clean over the wheels. The horse bolted, but it went home and no damage was done. But Mrs. Carr jarred her legs most terrible, and has had nervous spasms ever since whenever she thinks of the eel. Say, it was a rotten trick to play on the poor old soul. ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Percy answered. "You see, she has been with us boys, and she can play, and doesn't screech if you touch her, or mind a bit if she tears her frock. So are our cousins in England—some of them. Yes, there are some jolly girls, of course; still, after all, what's the good of them, taking them altogether? They are very nice in their way—quiet and well behaved, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty

... equatorial forest which one has heard about at home. Within a few yards, hundreds of frogs commence to croak loudly and continue steadily, with a few pauses to breathe, until daybreak. Hundreds of monkeys screech shrilly in the trees and millions of mosquitoes hum steadily within an inch or two of one's ears. All manner of animal cries are heard in the forest and the hippos blow loudly as they rise to the surface to breathe. As a matter of fact, the noise ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman

... charcoal-burners from the huts in the neighbourhood pass along the top of the Roche-Mauprat ravine, if it is in daytime they whistle with a defiant air or hurl a hearty curse at the ruins; but when day falls and the goat-sucker begins to screech from the top of the loopholes, wood-cutter and charcoal-burner pass by silently, with quickened step, and cross themselves from time to time to ward off the evil spirits that hold sway ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... short, the rancher was an excellent marksman, and the bullet bored its way through the breast of the painted miscreant, who hardly knew what hurt him. With a screech, he threw up his arms, one grasping his gun, and toppled from the back of his pony, falling with a loud splash into the water, where for the moment he ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... would labour, were they brought upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the passages I have already quoted—a dialogue which bandies 'O you screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'—in which a sister's admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... about it often," he answered, almost dully. "I like it better myself, as it is. It does appear to be a long way ahead, doesn't it—that day of completion which you cover in the screech of the whistles? Only to-day, when we were scrambling about down there in the alders, it took nearly all the imagination I possessed to see two streaks of steel where there is nothing but thicket now. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... that any one could have come up stairs, the impatient monarch, pointing with his crutch, added, "Run to the head of the stairs, Prince Harry dear, and call and screech to them to make no delay; and I want you out with me; so get ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth



Words linked to "Screech" :   shout out, screeching, holler, call, vociferation, resound, squeak, screechy, noise, screaming, skreigh, shout, shriek, outcry, screak, creak, squall, yell, screech owl



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