skrik, noun

/skrək/
Forms:
schreik, schrickShow more Also schreik, schrick, schrijk, scrick, skrick.
Origin:
Afrikaans, DutchShow more Afrikaans, from Dutch schrick fear, terror.
colloquial
1. A fright; used especially in the phrases to get a skrik, to have a skrik, to give (someone) a skrik, and (slang) to catch a skrik.
1887 A.A. Anderson 25 Yrs in Waggon I. 21The waggon had been gone half-an-hour when they heard the rattling of wheels in a manner which made them think that the oxen must have had a ‘scrick’ (scare) from a lion.
1896 H.A. Bryden Tales of S. Afr. 68It gave me a very nasty schrijk at the time.
1901 T.R. Adlam in M. Fraser Jhb. Pioneer Jrnls 1888–1909 (1985) 94A small card nailed above the knocker incribed thus: ‘Jules Matern, Bertha Schrink’ (followed by names of six coolies). This gave me a ‘skrick’. Who was Bertha S. and were the coolies living in my house?
1903 D. Blackburn Burgher Quixote 243For a moment I got a great schrick, thinking he might be dead, and that they had come to arrest me.
1913 C. Pettman Africanderisms 432Schrik,..A start, a fright. The word is in common use, both as a noun and as a verb, all over South Africa.
1913 J.J. Doke Secret City 255How you do frighten me. You gave me quite a schrik.
1943 F.H. Rose Kruger’s Wagon 139Next moment I experience what we Dutch call a ‘skrik’. But it was more than a mere start: it was a shock so sudden and overwhelming that...I was completely unprepared for it.
1946 S. Cloete Afr. Portraits 322He certainly — to use a Boer word — gave them all a good ‘skrik’ — a fright.
1957 B. O’Keefe Gold without Glitter 124A bloody great snake...Hell I got a skrik.
1969 A. Fugard Boesman & Lena 7Remember that night the water came up so high? When we woke up pap nat...? You got such a skrik you ran the wrong way.
1976 ‘Blossom’ in Darling 4 Feb. 87Hang but it only gives you a skrik when yore old folks start to talk like they’ve had you in chunks.
1984 Frontline May 39The SABC got a hang of a skrik from all the stories about how Bop was buying the best shows from abroad...It saw its audience and its advertising revenue going for a ball of chalk.
1985 Cape Times 2 Sept.Nobody was actually hurt, but my dog got a helluver skrik and hid under the bed.
1990 Frontline Jan. 23‘You are bold, Mr Botha’ the young man said ‘And your thinking’s become most verlig. But we’re not at all sure what goes on in your head And it gives us one hell of a skrik’.
1993 Pace July 56‘Sorry,’ Peppy said, ‘I didn’t mean to give you a skrik.’ ‘Me get a fright?’ Tom shook his head and laughed.
2. the skriks: ‘the shivers’; an attack or feeling of anxiety, fear, or apprehension.
1967 J. McIntosh in New S. Afr. Writing No.4, 123Some prints arrived from Johannesburg that really gave me the skriks, and made me shiver.
1975 ‘Blossom’ in Darling 12 Feb. 119‘Who, me?’ I tune him, meantime feeling the skriks running up and down my spine.
1977 E. Prov. Herald 29 Nov. 2The Nationalists care all right about which party becomes the official Opposition, it gives them the skriks (shivers) to think it will be the PFP.
A fright; used especially in the phrases to get a skrik, to have a skrik, to give (someone) a skrik, and (slang) to catch a skrik.
the skriks:‘the shivers’; an attack or feeling of anxiety, fear, or apprehension.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

18871993
skraal, adjectiveadj.skrik, verbv.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English