Meaning

noun sharp piercing cry

noun a high-pitched noise resembling a human cry

verb utter a shrill cry

originFrom obsolete shrick (1567), shreke, variants of earlier screak, skricke (before 1500), from Middle English scrycke, from a North Germanic/Scandinavian language (compare Swedish skrika, Danish skrige, Icelandic skríkja), from Proto-Germanic *skrīkijaną, *skrik- (compare English screech). More at screech.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0