Crossword clues for shrillness
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shrillness \Shrill"ness\, n. The quality or state of being shrill.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context uncountable English) The property of being shrill. 2 (context countable English) The result or product of being shrill.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Shrillness is a word used to describe the quality of sounds that have a high-pitched, strident, raucous, screeching or harsh character, such as those produced by a trumpet or piccolo, but it can also be used to describe a widely recognised and puzzling phenomenon whereby certain sounds are perceived as psychologically painful or aversive to a degree that cannot be accounted for simply in terms of frequency content or loudness. Such sounds include the Sound of fingernails scraping chalkboard, the sound of chalk on a blackboard, the sound of glass being scratched, and possibly the sound of a baby crying. There have been attempts to explain the phenomenon, often in terms of frequency content, or evolutionary advantage, but so far no complete explanation or mechanism has been found.
Usage examples of "shrillness".
I had come to settle one feud, not involve myself in another, but even while these lightning thoughts flickered in my mind, I had whipped out my skean and I was surprised at the shrillness of my own voice.
His every sentence was echoed by the herald so that even those at the far reaches of the crowd could hear, but Firekeeper was close enough to hear the old voice projecting with strength despite the shrillness of age.
The sounds were a squeaking shrillness that changed from day to day as Trixia and the other Focused linguists determined where in the acoustic spectrum the sense of Spider talk was hidden, and devised convenient representations, both auditory and visual, for its study.
All the girls were shuffled in and out of the Chorus of Corinthian Women and the Chorus of Trojan Women as if Corinthian and Trojan women possessed an interchangable shrillness.
The bosun's mate brought the cat out of its red baize bag: nine hearty strokes, nine appalling falsetto screams of a shrillness and a volume enough to mark the day as quite uncommon, and to gratify that part of the ship's company which took pleasure in bull-baiting, bear-baiting, prize fighting, pillories, and executions - perhaps nine-tenths of those present.
No sound, but a rasping shrillness that skidded on one's nerves, a something in the air that set one's teeth on edge.
One fist lifted strengthlessly, and a dying shrillness was in the dust: "Curse you, curse you, MIKILLATI, curse you for a stupid fool, leaving me here to be slain—no, no, no—"