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Shrilly   Listen
adverb
Shrilly  adv.  In a shrill manner; acutely; with a sharp sound or voice.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shrilly" Quotes from Famous Books



... contentment into one collective expression of contentment, or general grace during meat. Every now and again a big peacock would separate himself from the mob and take a stately turn or two about the lawn, or perhaps mount for a moment upon the rail, and there shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with himself and what he had to eat. It happened, for my sins, that none of these admirable birds had anything beyond the merest rudiment of a tail. Tails, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... know who that woman is," persisted Mrs. Ochiltree querulously. "William," she cried shrilly, poking the coachman in the back with the end of her cane, ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt

... his mind tortured itself. All at once he stopped short, lifted his head, and looked about him. The broad valley lay warm and tranquil in the May sunshine at his feet. In the thicket up the side-hill above him a gray squirrel was chattering shrilly, and the birds sang in a tireless choral confusion. Theron smiled, and drew a long breath. The gay clamor of the woodland songsters, the placid radiance of the landscape, were suddenly taken in and made a part of his new mood. He listened, smiled once ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... standing by her side. For a few moments they were stationary, making salutation and excuse and explanation, and then they walked slowly on through the sunshine. Wherever there was a bush there were flowers on it. Every tree was thronged with birds that sang shrilly and sweetly in sudden thrills and clear sustained melodies, but in the open spaces the silence was more wonderful; there was no bird note to come between Mary and that deep voice, no shadow of a tree to swallow up their own two shadows; and the ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens

... name into a wrong place, and enrols himself as having been born that morning. The Major now salutes the Bride right gallantly, and carries out that branch of military tactics in reference to all the ladies: notwithstanding Mrs Skewton's being extremely hard to kiss, and squeaking shrilly in the sacred edifice. The example is followed by Cousin. Feenix and even by Mr Dombey. Lastly, Mr Carker, with his white teeth glistening, approaches Edith, more as if he meant to bite her, than to taste the sweets that linger on ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... cliffs the tempest roared, High the screaming sea-mew soared; On Tintagel's topmost tower Darksome fell the sleety shower; Round the rough castle shrilly sung The whirling blast, and wildly flung On each tall rampart's thundering side The surges of the tumbling tide: When Arthur ranged his red-cross ranks On conscious Camlan's crimsoned banks: By ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... you to set yourself up as Elise's champion, anyway?" she demanded, shrilly. "Have you and she been getting engaged to each other ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... they declined to admit that the drama was a special art, with a method of its own. They resented bitterly the failures that followed when they refused to accept the conditions of the actual theater; and they protested shrilly against these conditions when they vainly essayed to fulfil them. "What a horrible manner of writing is that which suits the stage!" Flaubert complained to George Sand. "The ellipses, the suspensions, the interrogations must be lavished, if one ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... to be reached without a chair. And his captors read that wild glance directly, and the doctor whipped one chair away, while Mrs. Archbold, with more tact, sat quietly down on the other. They all three blew their whistles shrilly. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... were the little wren That shrilly chirps from yonder glen! Oh, far away I then would rove To some secluded bushy grove; There hop and sing with careless glee. Hop and sing at liberty; And, till death should stop my lays, Far from men would spend ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... three minutes—what difference does it make?" His voice rose shrilly with each word, and he had to make a definite effort to master himself before he could go on. "Look. You don't know anything about this. You just arrived and that's your bad luck. My bad luck is being ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... back without his pails. Beyond the orchard the hogs were clamoring shrilly for their morning draught; from the barn there came the sound of Isom's voice, speaking harshly to ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... days before; then a Kangaroo, with a smart bonnet and shawl, in the same style as Mrs. Jumper's; then a Wild Boar, looking like a country lout in a smock-frock; then a Beaver, no better dressed than one of our navvies, and who stamped on the Cat's toes, and made her squeak out so shrilly, that she made my ears tingle; then came a Parroquet, dressed like a dandy, and with him were two fashionable birds, Miss Cockatoo and Miss Snowy Owl; then followed an old Crocodile, looking like one of those withered ...
— Comical People • Unknown

... stopped he had pulled the saw-horse from the door, had opened the latter a little way, and, with his face at the opening, was whistling shrilly. ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... had just passed a wee ragged girl, whose blue, pinched face and hungry eyes made her sick with pity. The child was calling shrilly to an equally ragged boy who had paused on the sidewalk a little ahead of them. The youngster was absorbed in tormenting a feeble old man, whose little wagon with its load of soiled clothing he had just overturned into the mud of the street. The man was making ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... before his grandfather, who sat in his big arm-chair in the east door. Benjamin held in his right hand an old rope, which was attached to a leather strap around a puppy's neck. The puppy pulled at the rope, keeping it taut all the time. He also yelped shrilly. He did not like to be tied. The puppy was not a pretty one, being yellow and very clumsy; but Benjamin thought him a beauty. He had urged to his grandfather that there would not be a dog to equal him in the neighborhood ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... shrugged her shoulders. "Of course he ought," she assented shrilly, "but what am I to do? He simply won't go, will ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... is howling too shrilly over the barren ice-plains; there are 33 degrees of cold, and summer, with its flowers, is far, far away. I would give a year of my life to hold them in my embrace; they loom so far off in the distance, as if I should never come back ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... Chinese as shrilly and rapidly as any of his playmates of the Chinese quarter, and with his young friends of the white race he could reel off amazing vocabularies of American slang. And he could swear, and frequently did so, with all the nonchalance of a Chinaman and ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly

... woe for Adonis, shrilly cry the Muses, neglecting Paeon, and they lament Adonis aloud, and songs they chant to him, but he does not heed them, not that he is loth to hear, but that the Maiden of Hades doth ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang

... harlequinade, she peevishly exclaimed—'What buffoon is carrying on his fooleries here? I desire to be left in peace.' The light vanished instantly, and Swanhilda already had congratulated herself upon gaining her point, when suddenly a loud shrilly sound was heard—the floor of the apartment gave way, and from the gap there arose a table set out with the choicest viands. It rested upon a lucid body of air, upon which the tiny attendants skipped with great agility to and fro, waiting upon seated guests. At first Swanhilda ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... that pass, and when I looked I no longer doubted any of those wild tales of glamour concerning Goliath's Land; and for though the rocks were the same, and though the conies still stood gazing at the doors of their dwellings, though the hawks still cried out shrilly, though the fern still shook in the wind, yet beyond, oh such a land! not to be described by any because of its great beauty, lying, a great hollow land, the rocks going down on this side in precipices, then reaches and reaches of loveliest country, trees and flowers, and corn, then ...
— The Hollow Land • William Morris

... graceful tread And form erect, and movement slow, Back to their simple dwellings go— [Walls of earth, that stoutly stand, Neatly smoothed with wetted hand— Straw roofs, yellow once and gay, Turned by time and tempest gray—] Where the merry minahs crowd Unbrageous haunts, and chirrup loud— And shrilly talk the parrots green 'Midst the thick leaves dimly seen— And through the quivering foliage play, Light as buds, the squirrels gay, Quickly as the noontide beams Dance upon the rippled streams— Where the pariah[113] howls with fear, If the white ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... away. Mr. Fletcher trod back heavily upon Mr. Marrapit's foot. Mr. Marrapit screamed shrilly, plunged backwards into a cabinet, overturned it, ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... laughed shrilly and threw up both his hands to indicate the count of ten. "No more, you say? There will be ten more before it stops. Ten more! That's what the ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce

... might have changed their lives were never spoken, for, down the trail gaily, joyously, came the sound of Noreen's voice, shrilly singing one of the songs Northrup had ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... She screamed shrilly at the fourth shot; and Ben looked up to find her pale as the foam from his flashing paddle. "Turn around and go back," she cried to Ben. "He'll kill you if you ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall

... laughed bitterly, shrilly, and her laugh seemed but an echo of the hard, joyless sounds which had come from Hartmut's lips ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner

... though unusually qualified considering its spirit source, caused a genuine sensation. Almost every one said something. Zach Bloomer whistled shrilly in Mr. Bangs' ear and said, "Godfreys!" Galusha said, "Oh, dear me!" with distressful emphasis. Martha Phipps and Lulie clutched each other and the latter uttered a faint scream. Primmie Cash, who had stooped to pick up the dropped ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... I ponder'd these things, from the wood There came a black-hair'd woman, tall and bold, Who strode straight up to where the tower stood, And cried out shrilly words, ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris

... that sweips the chimelies in France we discovered to be litle boyes that come out of Savoy wt a long trie over the shoulders, crying shrilly thorow the cityes, je vengeray vos cheminees haut en bas. Its strange of thir litle stirrows,[182] let us or the Frenchmen menace them as we like we can never get them to say, Vive le Roy de France, but instead of it, ay Vive ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... was another alarming pause. Anything was better than that, and she began to talk almost at random, telling of various laughable things which had occurred among her scholars, laughing herself, somewhat shrilly, at the places where laughter ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... eastern hills was like a draught of invigorating wine. As he leaned out for an instant to make sure that not even the height would bring a return of the vertigo, the wail of the nearest newsboy became shrilly articulate: "Here's yer Morning Plainsman! All erbout the great ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... got tired of my society, and left for his mistress, I whistled shrilly, and was happy to hear a response, in the shape of a deep bay, back of the hut. We hurried where we could get a view of him, and, to my surprise and delight, I saw that he was standing over the prostrate body of the miserable, treacherous Bimbo, and showing a set of ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... and you dared—who is that at the table?" His voice rose shrilly into a cry. "That ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond

... sir! not yet!" cried the boy, shrilly. "I have seen so many strangers on that dreadful ship, and in France—we hid here, there—moving all the time. I wish to live with you and ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... handkerchiefs, a scarf, two shoe-strings, the jam pail, and Margherite—then, wheeling, noticed the planton (who peacefully and with dignity was pursuing a course which carried him further and further from the zone of operations) and finally, spinning around again, cried shrilly ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... our own day. We may wish for the honour of letters that Diderot had been able to preserve his independence. But pensions were the custom of the time. Voltaire, though a man of solid wealth, did not disdain an allowance from Frederick the Great, and complained shrilly because it was irregularly paid at the very time when he knew that Frederick was so short of money that he was driven to melt his plate. D'Alembert also had his pension from Berlin, and Grimm, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... that Detroit still held out, and redoubled their desire to gain its safe haven after their tedious voyage. Officers and men walked the deck impatiently, and searched the sky for wind clouds, while the sailors whistled shrilly for a breeze. But none came and the night descended calm, dark, and still. As the slow hours dragged themselves away, the ship's company, weary of the monotony of their watch, sought their sleeping places, or found such scant comfort as the decks ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... his head, in a pandemonium of helplessness. They whirled, and tumbled, and shrilly circled. And then to Laloi the ...
— Reluctant Genius • Henry Slesar

... a long-suffering piano was taking cruel punishment at the hands of a flashily dressed, sharp-faced man of horsey type. Flanking him, two young women of the world, with that insouciance which appertains—in Limehouse—to sweet sixteen, were chanting shrilly to his accompaniment: both more than comfortably drunk. In the middle of the room assorted lawbreakers gathered round a table were playing fan-tan at the top of their lungs. At smaller tables men and women sat consuming poisons of which they were obviously in no crying need; while in ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... still the beast refrained from making a target of itself, until, knowing that it would soon be too dark to shoot, I had to force the crisis. A strange sound might lead the quarry to show himself an instant before taking flight, and so I moistened my blue lips and whistled shrilly. A plump rotund body rose from the weeds, sixty yards away, I guessed, and I pitched up the rifle, dropping my left elbow well over my knee and steadying the cold ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... save for a few scratches, and being aided by Johnson, he soon had the men backing away toward the break of the poop, the third mate crying out shrilly to stop fighting. The queer young man was defending Andrews mightily with a knife, and for this reason alone the scoundrel managed to get to his feet and retreat with the rest, backing away as they did to the mizzen and from there to ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... so that he would not starve when the ice grew heavy. East, west, north and south, in forest and swamp, in the trapper's cabin and the wolf's hiding-place, was warning of it. Gray rabbits turned white. Moose and caribou began to herd. The foxes yipped shrilly in the night, and a new hunger and a new thrill sent the wolves hunting in packs, while the gray geese streaked southward ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... speed and two whistles rang shrilly through the roar of wheels when Miss Barrington laid down the book with which she had beguiled her journey of fifteen hundred miles, and rose from her seat in a corner of the big first-class car. ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... 1909 when they showed a fleeting desire to take a non-political and national view of this matter of defence, could not resist the temptation to profit by the campaign against the government's policy; and they joined shrilly in the derisive cry of "tin pot navy." These onslaughts from opposite camps were a factor in the elections of 1911; especially in Quebec where twenty-seven constituencies (against eleven in 1908) ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... "Engaged!" cried Esmeralda shrilly. "Engaged! You! To Stanor Vaughan? Pixie O'Shaughnessy, I never heard such nonsense in ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... shout of glee. It caught their feet; it blew their eyelids down. Just when they cried, "It's caught! I've got it in my hands!" it shot laughing up against the ceiling, boomed down the chimney, or whistled shrilly as it escaped beneath the crack of the door into the passage. The keyhole was its easiest escape. It grew boisterous, singing with delight, yet was never for a moment rough. It cushioned all its ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... and stared out where his visitor pointed to. Then suddenly he flung open one of the glazed doors and stepped on to the round balcony—perhaps that is not the right word to use for a lighthouse, but I do not know any other—outside, followed by Mr. Vane. Just then Biddy's screams came shrilly through the clear afternoon air, for it was a still day, and out at the lighthouse, when there was no noise of wind and waves, there was certainly nothing else to disturb the silence except perhaps the cry of a sea-gull overhead, or now and then the sound ...
— The Rectory Children • Mrs Molesworth

... gathered around them as they stood talking. The speckled chicken, who, as a result of being brought up "by hand," was developing an extravagant fondness for human society, came up peeping shrilly, evidently under the impression that in so sizable a gathering, there must be some one who had nothing better to do than minister to his wants. Hobo, too, made his appearance, and he alone of the company gave no sign of mental disturbance. ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith

... see the admiring gang slap Billy on the back, and hear "Good owd Billy!" and never a word of thanks to him. Then, knowing Billy to be a liar, he would tell him so, yelping shrilly, in Buttonesque vernacular (North ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... expectation of getting much for little and something for nothing. The buyer was no better than the seller. He was a gambler. He "played against the game of the man who kept the table" (as the phrase went), and naturally he lost. Naturally, too, he cried out, but his lamentations, though echoed shrilly by the demagogues, seem to have been unavailing. Even the rudimentary intelligence of that primitive people discerned the impracticability of laws forbidding the seller to set his own price on the thing he would sell and declare it worth ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... it was in which to be happy! With its wheeling motor cars, its lovers seated in high security for the long omnibus ride, its laborers pleasantly ready for the home table and the day's domestic news! The chattering little Jewish girls from one of the uptown department stores were gay with shrilly voiced plans; the driver, riding lazily home on a pile of empty bags, had no quarrel with the world; the smooth- haired, unhatted Italian women from the Ghetto, with shawls wrapped over their full breasts, and serene black-eyed babies toddling ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... like a lion in a cage," Bertie whispered irreverently. He paid the cabman while they got out, and then hurried them across the platform and into a first-class carriage that he had engaged; the door was shut with a loud bang, and in another moment the engine whistled shrilly, and the train went out of the station. Mr. Murray held all their tickets in his hand, and in such a way that even Bertie's keen eyes could not detect their destination, but as they got completely into the country ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... They are rising white around me, Snow peaks like patriarchs That Winter has enthroned. I'm tramping up the valleys Where the cataracts sound me Thunders they have shrilly From ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice

... day by day. An uglier-looking pet, tested by all the rules we usually apply to such things, would have been hard to find. There he would sit upon his elbows, his helpless feet out in front of him, his great featherless wings touching the floor, and shrilly cry for more food. For a time we gave him water daily from a stylograph-pen filler, but the water he evidently did not need or relish. Fresh meat, and plenty of it, was his demand. And we soon discovered ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... or he'll do us!" cried Raffles shrilly over his shoulder; and a gruff sardonic laugh came back over mine. It was pearly morning now, but we had run into a shallow mist that took me by the throat and stabbed me to the lungs. I coughed and ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... went over the heavy, clinging dress, the disordered hair, the bracelets that were like manacles as she threw her arms about, moaning, muttering, and laughing shrilly. The eyes rolled wildly in their senseless stare, ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... scarcely more than a whisper, "Tobey!" but it rose shrilly as she cried, "Where you ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... bows like pups ashore. But, at intervals, the gray albatross, peculiar to these seas, came flapping his immense wings over us, and then skimmed away silently as if from a plague-ship. Or flights of the tropic bird, known among seamen as the "boatswain," wheeled round and round us, whistling shrilly as they flew. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville

... on the roof to complete the picture. I took a kodak shot at this, also at a group of tousle-headed children at the door of a decrepit shanty built entirely within a crevice of the rock—their Hibernian mother, with one hand holding an apron over her head, and the other shielding her eyes, shrilly crying to a neighboring cliff-dweller: "Miss McCarthy! Miss McCarthy! There's a feller here, a photergraph'n' all the people in the Bottom! Come, quick!" Then they eagerly pressed around me, Germans ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... back in his chair abruptly and cut in shrilly, "They still think you and Margaret should marry on account of Kenyon?" Grant nodded. "Do you want to marry her?" The Doctor leaned forward in his chair, watching the boy. The Doctor saw the flash of revulsion that spread over the youth's face before ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... a vary seemilar case," broke in Snecky Hobart shrilly. "Maist o' ye'll mind 'at Donal was michty plagueit wi' a drucken wife. Ay, weel, wan day Bowie's man was carryin' a coffin past Donal's door, and Donal an' the wife was there. Says Donal, 'Put doon yer coffin, my man, an' tell's wha it's for.' The laddie rests the coffin on its end, an' says ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie

... sounded a different order every little while. Some of the more prudent women went home and began packing their household treasures, but for the most part every one stayed in the market-place and argued shrilly. ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent

... daunt Paul. He only saw the frightened face of the little chap who so valorously clung to the lines, and shouted shrilly at the top of his childish voice, as though expecting the usually tractable horse ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... or were suspended aloft with hooks in their backs like young Hindoo devotees. Demons, guiltless of hoof or horn, clutched their victims with the inevitable "Ha! ha!" and vanished darkly, eating pea-nuts. The ubiquitous Mr. Sharp seemed to pervade the whole theatre; for his voice came shrilly from above or spectrally from below, and his active little figure darted to and fro ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... much in the way as myself, I invited him upstairs to the attic, whence we heard Jess and Leeby upbraiding each other shrilly. I was aware that the room was speckless; but for all that, Leeby was turning it ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... fore-leg, shattering it. A wild thrill of hope ran through Charlie and he leaped forward. But the rogue had vitality beyond the ordinary, vitality and a tremendous raging strength that carried him to his feet again. For an instant he stood, lurching and rocking on three legs, trumpeting shrilly until the woods re-echoed, and then the horrified Charlie saw him plunge forward, ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney

... barrelled sorrel close at the Lady's heels, the rest of the horses following in a close packed body, the fleeing animals came to the natural bulwark which the mountains lifted before them. Their ropes swinging in ever widening loops, hissing swifter and swifter until in broadening circles they sang shrilly, Wayne Shandon and Big ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... young of heart. Elaine was sketching it in her book with the bold lines of the scene-painter, ignoring detail and working only for the high-lights and deep shadows. Round her, peeking over her shoulders and chattering shrilly, were a group of children. In the background lounged a young Provencal peasant with a nose twisted out ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... A young child screaming shrilly, violently, and continuously, is oftentimes owing to ear-ache; carefully, therefore, examine each ear, and ascertain if there be any discharge; if there be, ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... you talkin'—" Then a light of recognition sprang into his weazened features. "You're the feller that owes me a quarter!" he cried shrilly, scrambling to ...
— Behind the Line • Ralph Henry Barbour

... looked askance at her; but the women—who could bridle their tongues or blunt their scornful glances? Briareus, armed to the teeth, would not affright our modern dowagers, or deter them from their prey. Wherever the carcass of a fair fame lies, thither they flock, screaming shrilly in triumph, vulture-eyed, sharp-taloned—the choosers ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence

... failed thrice, a peal of laughter greeting each failure. At the fourth essay, he upset his stool and fell to the floor, but held the slipper. And not the slipper only, but the foot. Amid a flutter of silken skirts and dainty laces—while the hidden beauty shrilly protested—he dragged first the ankle, and then a shapely leg into sight. The circle applauded; the lady, feeling herself still drawn on, screamed loudly and more loudly. All save the King and his opponent turned to look. And then the sport came to a sudden ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman

... for the sug-ges-tion," said Billy politely. "And don't you move while I carry it out!" He put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly. A sergeant and two men came tumbling out of the darkness. "What is ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... Dundee heard the whir of a car's engine, then the loud banging of a car's door.... Running footsteps on the flagstone path.... Dundee reached the front door just as the bell pealed shrilly. ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin

... see in strange places. And then when the show came back to your own home-town next year, people would wonder whose was that slim and gracile figure in the green silk tights and spangled breech-clout that capered so nimbly on the bounding courser's back, that switched the natty switch and shrilly called out: "Hep! Hep!" They'd screw up their eyes to look hard, and they'd say: "Yes, sir. It is. It's him. It's Willie Bigelow. Well, of all things!" And they'd clap their hands, and be so proud of you. And they'd ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... yourselves men," she cried shrilly, "yet you leave one of your officers lying on deck to be shot at ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... fly, having no feathers; and they crept under a crooked log. I rolled the log over very gently and took one of the cowering creatures into my hand—a tiny, palpitating scrap of life, covered with soft gray down, and peeping shrilly, like a Liliputian chicken. And now the mother was transformed. Her fear was changed into fury. She was a bully, a fighter, an Amazon in feathers. She flew at me with loud cries, dashing herself almost into my face. I was a tyrant, ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke

... shrilly, making frantic gestures with her hoop. But though Eleanor turned and looked back at the gay pageant under the trees, she couldn't single out any one figure among so many, and after an instant's hesitation she went on up the Hilton ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde

... say!" yelled Duff shrilly. "Duff, I'm afraid you're making a fool of yourself," remarked Tom, stepping ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock

... show you what I mean. Not long ago a speaker in a rescue mission asked the children if they could tell him where heaven was. Immediately a boy from the poorest section of the city sprang up, raised his hand and cried shrilly: "I know; I know." "Well, my boy, where is heaven?" the astonished leader asked. "Back in our street since mother got acquainted with Jesus," was ...
— Fifty-Two Story Talks To Boys And Girls • Howard J. Chidley

... he was outdoing the old gentleman when he whistled still more shrilly on his fingers, coughed still more wrathfully and spat still more decisively. The qualities in the old gentleman that had really commanded respect, the consistency which, even where it degenerated into obstinacy, compelled esteem, the calm, self-contained dignity of a capable ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... Ysabel is in commotion, somewhat like the bells themselves, as she listens to them and to the clamor of the children, who began to gather an hour ago before the cottage, and are now shrilly calling, "Y-sa-bel." And she can hardly stand still while her mother is busily putting the last touches to the wonderful array in which she is to appear. Never before has any girl of the village had ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase

... to hear the well-known voice of Sultan, whinnying shrilly. It was a dream, and Ted tossed uneasily. But again and again he heard Sultan's voice. It had a note of alarm in it, and Ted knew that Sultan seldom gave an alarm of this sort unless something serious was the matter. Ted's dream was of Indians, and the ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... It's stung me!" cried the Babe shrilly, jumping to his feet and slapping at his ear. His eyes filled ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts

... the worm on his hook and flicked it toward the brook. A second after it struck the water there was a splash, and Lew's reel sang shrilly. ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... of further pursuit amid the maze of sand dunes opposite, the sharp reports of two rifles reached him, spurts of smoke rose from the farther bank, and a bullet chugged into the ground at his feet, while another sang shrilly overhead. ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... was back at anchor then. It was enclosed in the most beautiful combination of city and scene that exists anywhere. Beyond the city the blunted cone of Vesuvius rose. In the city, newspaper vendors shrilly hawked denunciations of the American ships because of the danger that their atom bombs might explode. Well outside the harbor, a Navy crew of experts worked to make quite impossible the detonation of atomic bombs in a stubby tramp-steamer which had—plausibly, at least—been ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... warriors on horseback and on foot, and by harsh Assyrian music, produced by trumpets, drums, metallic plates, and pipes squealing shrilly. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... background of many curious yearling and two-year-old colts, against which, in the middleground, he saw his hostess, on the back of the bright bay thoroughbred, The Fop, who, on hind legs, was striking his forefeet in the air and squealing shrilly. They reined in ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... and cosy lights of an inn. There it was. He peered up at the sign: 'The Tinners' Rest'. But he could not make out the name of the proprietor. He listened. There was excited talking and laughing, a woman's voice laughing shrilly among ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence

... On came the thundering train. The whistle blew shrilly. The young man increased his pace, but it was easy to see that he could not get off the bridge ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope

... leaped into the canoe and pushed off, we following more slowly, taking a last look of the group on shore—the Indian wigwam, the pretty squaws, leaning sadly against each other as they watched Frank's canoe round the point; the stout matron, still flourishing the emaciated-looking carrots, and shrilly vociferating their perfections to Carriere; and the dancing-girl waving a farewell ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon

... minutes. But there are certain noises which wake me, and I found myself all of a sudden sitting up in bed and listening with all my ears. Everything was quiet, even on the elevated road; but when the next train came thundering along, I heard, piercing shrilly through the rumble and roar, that same sharp ping which had wakened me. What was it? It seemed to come from somewhere in the house. But how could that be! I was startled enough, however, to get up and slip on ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... great as that to be seen on the quays of Paris. Foreign sailors in outlandish garments and of harsh-sounding, outlandish speech, stalwart fishwives with baskets of herrings on their heads, voluminous of petticoat above bare legs and bare feet, calling their wares shrilly and almost inarticulately, watermen in woollen caps and loose trousers rolled to the knees, peasants in goatskin coats, their wooden shoes clattering on the round kidney-stones, shipwrights and labourers from ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... faces of those nearest to her, and smitten others with the flat of her sword, that she succeeded in reducing her followers to even a partial silence. Then she beat upon the barred door of Tungku Indut's house with her naked weapon, and cried shrilly ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... vigilance. Suddenly Garratt Skinner stepped forward, very quickly, very silently. With one step he was close behind his friend; and then just as he was about to move again—it seemed to Sylvia that he was raising his arm, perhaps to touch his friend upon the shoulder—Chayne whistled—whistled sharply, shrilly and with a kind of urgency which ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason

... lamp over the archway flaring on the top of her shabby old fly, while behind it was a long line of handsome carriages whose drivers vituperated the driver of the cab, in his broken hat. At the window was Bessie's face. Bessie's excited voice was heard shrilly calling on ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... in The self-same act had whirled his bow by end With mighty whirr about his head, and struck The dagger with so featly stroke and full That blade flew up and hilt flew down, and left Lord Raoul unfriended of his weapon. Then The fool cried shrilly, "Shall a knight of France Go stabbing his own cattle?" And Lord Raoul, Calm with a changing mood, sat still and called: "Here, huntsmen, 'tis my will ye seize the hind That broke my dagger, bind him to this tree And slice both ears to hair-breadth of his head, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... which greeted Representative Rollinson's vote on the "Breaker." The reading-clerk had sung his way through an inconsequent bill; most of the members were buried in newspapers, gossiping, idling, or smoking in the lobbies, when a loud, cracked voice was heard shrilly demanding recognition. ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... wind began to whistle shrilly through the air, and the sky became so black they could scarcely see a hundred yards in any direction, Then came some distant flashes of lightning and rolling thunder, and soon the patter ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield

... Doc Macnooder shrilly, as master of ceremonies, "we want to pull this off in fine shape. We're going to drive around the Circle. And I want this orchestra to keep together. Whose legs are those with the ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... ridge they descried the camp of the Yemassees—huts fashioned of poles and bark and boughs, a freshly killed deer hanging from a tree, smoke rising from beneath a huge iron kettle, plump, naked children scampering in play with several barking dogs, the squaws shrilly scolding them. Several warriors lazily emerged from the huts, yawning, brushing the long black hair ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... he'll send me up—but I don't care. I broke him—with my naked hands. Didn't I, McNamara?" He mocked unsteadily at the boss, who cursed aloud in return, glowering like an evil mask, while Stillman ran up dishevelled and shrilly irascible. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... it," Peter would shrilly and emphatically explain. "It's like a German tripper collecting souvenirs. Things aren't interesting merely because you happen to have been to the places they belong to. What do you want with that bit of glass? It isn't beautiful; when it's ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay

... his head, glanced across the coulee at a band of range horses trooping down a gully to drink at the river, and whinnied shrilly. The Happy Family started and awoke to the stern necessities of life. They stood up, and walked a little way from the spot, avoiding one ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower

... not sufficiently terrifying, the air is throbbing with sound. Each Indian pops away for general results as he comes jumping along, and yells shrilly to show what a big warrior he is, while underneath it all is the hurried monotone of hoof-beats becoming ever louder, as the roar of an increasing rainstorm on the roof. It does not seem possible that anything ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White

... pleases her. How well you know the girl!" she cried shrilly. "But for glittering diamonds she might have lived a happy enough life of it. Will people ever learn the lesson that they can not pick up girls from the depths of poverty and obscurity and transplant then into elegant surroundings and expect good to ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey

... farther on stood a charming old Dutch cottage with cabbages in the front yard, and a hop-vine clambering the porch. An infant Teuton swung upon the gate, who, being addressed by Miselle, lisped an answer in High Dutch, while his mother shrilly exchanged the news with her next neighbor in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... hissed with extraordinary passion. "Colina Gaviller! I know! I hate her! She proud and wicked woman. She hate my people!" Nesis's eyes flamed up with a kind of bitter triumph. Her voice rose shrilly. ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... one of the party who resolved not to obey the command, and that was Pixy. He, too, heard the noise outside, and sprang against the door, barking shrilly. ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... on euery bush, The Snake lies rolled in the chearefull Sunne, The greene leaues quiuer, with the cooling winde, And make a cheker'd shadow on the ground: Vnder their sweete shade, Aaron let vs sit, And whil'st the babling Eccho mock's the Hounds, Replying shrilly to the well tun'd-Hornes, As if a double hunt were heard at once, Let vs sit downe, and marke their yelping noyse: And after conflict, such as was suppos'd. The wandring Prince and Dido once enioy'd, When with a happy storme ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... on Bailey shrilly. "I can't hang it up. People would laugh at it. And to think that I paid you all that money for it. I could have got a real ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse

... the Cauldstaneslap children twice in the twenty-four hours on their way to the school and back again, an occasional shepherd, the irruption of a clan of sheep, or the birds who haunted about the springs, drinking and shrilly piping. So, when she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was received into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the farm. It still lay deserted except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to be scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the table in ritualistic challenge, exchanged gestures, bent his neck and passed on. He circled the broad floor, sabre twirling, arms darting in an intricate symbolism. The orchestra blared shrilly, unmuffled now by the surf-roar of conversation. The Yill, Retief noticed suddenly, were sitting silent, watching. The dancer was closer now, and then he was before Retief, poised, ...
— The Yillian Way • John Keith Laumer

... every day the year through, year after year. The bright summer sun glows upon it; the red sun of the frosty hours of winter looks at it from under the deepening canopy of vapour the blasts of the autumnal equinox howl over the vast city and whistle shrilly in the rigging; still at every tide the world of ships moves out into the river. Why does not a painter come here and place the real romance of these things upon canvas, as Venice has been placed? Never twice alike, the changing atmosphere is reflected in the hue of the varnished masts, now ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... horsemen to disentangle themselves from the alley; the Englishmen looked glumly at the tall housefronts; the French loosened the mouthplates of their helmets to breathe the air for a minute. Hostlers, packmen and pedlars began to fill the space behind Udal, and he heard his wife's voice calling shrilly to a cook who had ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... said the Jack shrilly, "right up to the beautiful sky! Yours too, Lollie. Stand away from the table, everybody, and back to the wall. For the Jack o' Judgment is amongst you and life is ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... swarmed down the ladder, and Jack was in the hands of the powerful Dublin. At the same moment, Monkey dropped his hatchet and dashed past them to the ladder, where he hung like his simian namesake, calling shrilly for the night watchman. Jack made an effort to twist himself loose from the hands of Dublin, ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor

... the water-gate of the edifice through a very narrow, damp, and uncleanly canal, pretending that there was a beautiful staircase in its court. At the moment of our arrival, however, Bianca happened to be hanging out clothes from a window, and shrilly disclaimed the staircase, attributing this merit to another Palazzo Cappello. We were less pleased with her appearance here, than with that portrait of her which we saw on another occasion in the palace of a lady of her name ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells



Words linked to "Shrilly" :   piercingly



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