Etymology

screech

S1C3R1E1E1C3H4

Today it means: A high-pitched strident or piercing sound, such as that between a moving object and any surface. Full definition →

Middle English skriken ← Old Norse skríkja ← Proto-Germanic *skrīkijaną
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The story

  1. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*skrīkijaną
  2. Old Norse · derived fromskríkja
  3. Middle English · inherited fromskriken
  4. English todayscreech

1602; altered with expressive vowel lengthening from earlier skrech (1577), variant of obsolete scritch, from Middle English skriken, shrichen, schrichen (1250), from Old English (attested as scriccettan) and Old Norse skríkja, both from Proto-Germanic *skrīkijaną (compare Icelandic skríkja, Old Saxon scricōn, Danish skrige, Swedish skrika), derivative of *skrīhaną (compare Middle Dutch schriën, German schreien, Low German dial. schrien, schriegen), ultimately of imitative origin.

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishskriken all →

scrikeskrike

Old Norseskríkja all →

scrikeskrike

Proto-Germanic*skrīkijaną all →

shriek

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.