screel

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium. Particularly: “screech + skirl?”)

Noun

screel (plural screels)

1. A discordant high-pitched noise.
   • 2010, Sabrina Broadbent, You Don't Have to Be Good, →ISBN, page 150:

     The screams began as the usual long screel.

   • 2011, Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full, →ISBN, page 480:

     Someone had got hold of a bullhorn and was bellowing out instructions that, thanks to screels of feedback, were utterly incomprehensible.

   • 2016, Paul Youngquist, A Pure Solar World: Sun Ra and the Birth of Afrofuturism, →ISBN, page 217:

     As for the Minimoog itself, it proved capable of creating whole new registers of possibility: a viscid bass that stirs the entrails, a tonal warmth that solicits well-being, a cringing static that conjures animal fear, a piercing screel that commands almost spiritual submission.

Verb

screel (third-person singular simple present screels, present participle screeling, simple past and past participle screeled)

1. To emit a screel; to screech or skirl.
   • 2008, Bev Cooke, Feral, →ISBN, page 98:

     Katherine steps into the train and the sides hiss closed. Candlewax waves as it screels its way out of the station.

   • 2016, Elvi Joy, Soul Reaper's Mate, →ISBN, page 91:

     The creature screels, a spine-chilling sound so intense the two unbroken windows at the far left corner of the room shatter, spraying chunks and slivers of glass everywhere.

   • 2016, Melanie Tem, Out of the House of Darkness:

     The bagpipe suddenly screeled in a peculiar off-beat, sending chills down Neil's spine.

Anagrams

• Creels, Ercles, cleers, creels, sclere