Also 8–9 squeel; north. dial. 8–9 sweel, 9 sweeal. [f. the vb.]
1. A more or less prolonged sharp cry; a shrill scream. Also fig.
1747. Relph, Misc. Poems, 2.
| The shearers aw brast out | |
| In sweels of laughter. |
1776. Pennant, Brit. Zool. (ed. 4), I. 85. It is observable that the male otters never make any noise when taken: but the pregnant females emit a most shrill squeal.
1786. Burns, Holy Fair, xiii. His lengthen’d chin, his turn’d up snout, His eldritch squeel an’ gestures.
1835. Marryat, J. Faithful, xix. All of a sudden we heard a rustling in the furze, and then a loud squeal.
1853. R. S. Surtees, Sponge’s Sp. Tour, ix. 42. Some of the more lively of the horses … evinced their approbation of the move, by sundry squeals and capers.
1894. Birrell, Ess., viii. 82. There is nothing … [they] like better than to hear the squeal of some self-torturing atom of humanity.
b. A sharp shrill sound.
1867. J. Macgregor, Voy. Alone (1868), 16. The shrill squeal of a pulley thrills my ear with pleasure.
1897. Mary Kingsley, W. Africa, 583. The shrill squeal of the wind, the roar of the thunder, and the rush of the rain.
2. Sc. A quarrel or broil.
1788. Picken, Poems, 65. Ye needna gang sae far afiel’ To tell how Tea has bred a squeel.
