ear-piercing

[ eer-peer-sing ]

/ ˈɪərˌpɪər sɪŋ /

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See synonyms for ear-piercing on Thesaurus.com

adjective

extremely harsh and irritating to the ear: ear-piercing noise.

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Origin of ear-piercing

First recorded in 1595–1605

Words nearby ear-piercing

earn one's stripes, EAROM, Earp, earphone, earpiece, ear-piercing, earplug, Earp, Wyatt, earreach, earring, ear rot

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use ear-piercing in a sentence

Is it true that I am the only person who has ever been interviewed twice [ear-piercing whistle] by Playboy?
Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview|Alex Belth|February 16, 2014|DAILY BEAST
All that Huck Finn innocence was wiped out with one ear-piercing pig-like squeal.
Enough with the Overalls!|Sean Macaulay|April 7, 2010|DAILY BEAST
I once even got detention for telling a new male classmate with an ear piercing he probably had AIDS.
What I Saw at the Revolution|Porochista Khakpour|February 11, 2009|DAILY BEAST
Then with one loud ear-piercing shriek thrown back on the wind—see!
The Mayor's Wife|Anna Katherine Green

His rhetoric was set forth with an ear-piercing elocution, and a voice that sometimes crashed like cannon.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI|Robert Louis Stevenson
Bill Hayes, he of the gray mustache and the ear-piercing faller's cry, was a "long-stake" man.
The Hidden Places|Bertrand W. Sinclair
No one has ever more skilfully communicated his own disenchantment; no one ever blown a more ear-piercing note of sadness.
Familiar Studies of Men and Books|Robert Louis Stevenson
But he jumped up, and ran down to the shore, and sent an ear-piercing yell across the water.
Peter Cotterell's Treasure|Rupert Sargent Holland

British Dictionary definitions for ear-piercing

ear piercing

noun

the making of a hole in the lobe of an ear, using a sterilized needle, so that an earring may be worn fastened in the hole

adjective ear-piercing

so loud or shrill as to hurt the ears

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012