Make Your Point: STRIDENT

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pronounce STRIDENT:

STRY dent

connect this word to others:

The word strident traces back to the Latin stridere, "to grate, to creak, to screech," and some etymologists believe that stridere mimics the sound of what it describes. So, the origin of strident, maybe, is echoic, or imitative, or ono____poetic: sounding like what it means.

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

Something strident makes a harsh, shrill, or grating sound.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Adjective: "His tone was strident;" "We heard her strident voice from down the hall."

Other forms:

The adverb is "stridently."

For a noun, you can pick between "stridence" and "stridency." (I recommend "stridency;" it sounds nicer and is more common than "stridence.")

There's also a closely related verb, "stridulate," which means "to make a sound that's harsh, shrill, or grating."

how to use it:

Pick the formal, serious, common word "strident" to describe anything that seems to hit your ears with a high, sharp, clashing, or clanging sound.

We most often talk literally about strident voices, insects, and music. Occasionally we say that a person is strident as they're talking (or, more likely, shouting or screeching).

Sometimes we talk figuratively about strident moods, attitudes, emotions, support, opposition, claims, threats, criticisms, warnings, arguments, or debates. In this figurative sense, strident things are so excited or alarmed that they're obnoxious to listen to.

examples:

"'Where is my tea?' came a shout from the top of the stairs, the strident voice silencing the singing and ending Ophie's happy reverie."
— Justina Ireland, Ophie's Ghosts, 2021

"What Wallace has to say isn't conventionally uplifting, but he delivers it with such earnestness and stridency that it's hard not to be moved."
— Luke Epplin, Salon, 5 May 2014

has this page helped you understand "strident"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "strident" without saying "shrieking" or "shrill."

try it out:

Describing the results of a study, the New York Times noted that it's hard for a group of people to reach an accord about something when that group includes a "member whose strident opinions drown out everyone else."

Well, duh, right?

Could you talk about a time you've seen this happen, either in real life or in fiction? Who was the person with the strident opinions?

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "CLICKBAIT THIS!"

Summon your creativity and dismiss your sense of decency as you invent a clickbaity description: one that's urgent, exaggerated, ungrammatical, conspiratorial, utterly false, emotionally abrasive, vaguely revelatory, full of feigned shock, and/or bloated with capital letters, question marks, exclamation points, and/or emojis. Get in there and be shameless.

If you're sufficiently disgusted with your clickbait, share it with a friend and see if they can guess its subject. I'll also share mine with you to see if you can guess it.

Clickbait this today: A writer of your choice.

Try guessing my writer: Making MILLIONS, SECRET MYSTERIES, art and RELGIOUS, WHAT IF SECRET SOCIETY ITALY, TOM HANKS????

Scroll all the way down for the answer to mine.

review this word:

1. A near opposite of STRIDENT could be

A. PERORATORY (sounding grand, showy, and dramatic).
B. CACOPHONOUS (sounding ugly, harsh, and confusing).
C. MELLIFLUOUS (sounding sweet, charming, and fluid, like honey).

2. Each of the four stanzas in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells" describes a different kind of bell, the most strident being "_____" bells that "_____."

A. silver .. tinkle, tinkle, tinkle
B. mellow .. ring out their delight
C. brazen .. clang, and clash, and roar

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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