different between shriek vs jabber

English

Alternative forms

• shreek (obsolete)

Etymology

From obsolete shrick (1567), shreke, variants of earier screak, skricke (bef. 1500), from Middle English scrycke, from a Scandinavian language (compare Swedish skrika, Icelandic skríkja), from Proto-Germanic *skr?kijan?, *skrik- (compare English screech). More at screech.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??i?k/
• Rhymes: -i?k

Noun

shriek (plural shrieks)

1. A sharp, shrill outcry or scream; a shrill wild cry such as is caused by sudden or extreme terror, pain, or the like.

   • Shrieks, clamours, murmurs, fill the frighted town.

   • 1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 5:

     Sabor, the lioness, was a wise hunter. To one less wise the wild alarm of her fierce cry as she sprang would have seemed a foolish thing, for could she not more surely have fallen upon her victims had she but quietly leaped without that loud shriek?

2. (Britain, slang) An exclamation mark.

Translations

Verb

shriek (third-person singular simple present shrieks, present participle shrieking, simple past and past participle shrieked)

1. (intransitive) To utter a loud, sharp, shrill sound or cry, as do some birds and beasts; to scream, as in a sudden fright, in horror or anguish.
   • At this she shriek'd aloud; the mournful train / Echoed her grief.
2. (transitive) To utter sharply and shrilly; to utter in or with a shriek or shrieks.
   • 1817, Thomas Moore, Lalla-Rookh

     She shrieked his name to the dark woods.

Derived terms

• ashriek

Translations

Anagrams

• Ihrkes, hikers, shrike

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d?æb?(?)/
• Rhymes: -æb?(?)

Etymology 1

Imitative.

Verb

jabber (third-person singular simple present jabbers, present participle jabbering, simple past and past participle jabbered)

1. (intransitive) To talk rapidly, indistinctly, or unintelligibly; to utter gibberish or nonsense.
   • 1829, James Hogg, The Shepherd’s Calendar, New York: A.T. Goodrich, Volume I, Chapter 9, “Mary Burnet,” p. 184,^[1]

     Allanson made some sound in his throat, as if attempting to speak, but his tongue refused its office, and he only jabbered.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 19,^[2]

     “What are you jabbering about, shipmate?” said I.

2. (transitive) To utter rapidly or indistinctly; to gabble.
   • 1939, H. G. Wells, The Holy Terror, Book One, Chapter 1, Section 2,^[3]

     He wept very little, but when he wept he howled aloud, and jabbered wild abuse, threats and recriminations through the wet torrent of his howling.

Translations

Noun

jabber (uncountable)

1. Rapid or incoherent talk, with indistinct utterance; gibberish.
   • 1735, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, edited by George Faulkner, Dublin, 1735, Volume 3, A Letter from Capt. Gulliver to his Cousin Sympson, pp. v-vi,^[4]

     And, is there less Probability in my Account of the Houyhnhnms or Yahoos, when it is manifest as to the latter, there are so many Thousands even in this City, who only differ from their Brother Brutes in Houyhnhnmland, because they use a Sort of a Jabber, and do not go naked.

   • 1918, Carl Sandburg, “Jabberers” in Cornhuskers, New York: Henry Holt & Co., p. 68,^[5]

     Two tongues from the depths,

     Alike only as a yellow cat and a green parrot are alike,

     Fling their staccato tantalizations

     Into a wildcat jabber

     Over a gossamer web of unanswerables.

Derived terms

• jabberment (obsolete)

Translations

Etymology 2

jab +? -er

Noun

jabber (plural jabbers)

1. One who or that which jabs.
2. A kind of hand-operated corn planter.
   • 1999, Nicholas P. Hardeman, Across the Bloody Chasm

     The jabber was the most popular hand-operated corn planter ever devised. […] Inset shows jaws closed for jabbing (left) and open for depositing kernels (right).