wail like a banshee
to scream in a loud voice
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
One old lady was playing eight bingo cards at once and when I sat next to her and tried to introduce myself she WAILED LIKE A BANSHEE…
(The Morris Telford blog on the BBC web site)
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Jack came down the altar stairs, where he was momentarily accosted by Wheelchair Jane; WAILING LIKE A BANSHEE, she blocked the center aisle.
(from the John Irving novel Until I Find You)
(The Morris Telford blog on the BBC web site)
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Jack came down the altar stairs, where he was momentarily accosted by Wheelchair Jane; WAILING LIKE A BANSHEE, she blocked the center aisle.
(from the John Irving novel Until I Find You)
Did you
know?
wail like a banshee (also, scream like a banshee)
hyperbole (a figure of speech in which a statement is exaggerated)
- to make a loud and piercing cry, scream or moan
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WORD ORIGIN
A banshee is an Irish folklore figure whose wailing songs of sorrow (called keening) foretell a family death. In the form of a solitary woman, she derives from the mythological concept of a goddess who presides over the fortunes of a family. She is generally heard at night rather than seen, though more modern versions of the myth portray her as a small, wizened old woman who combs her hair as she wails.
She may be seen as a beautiful maiden weeping for the coming death of a loved one, or she may be a horrible old woman who has come to announce the pending death. In Irish folklore, the banshee was thought to be the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth, or of a murdered pregnant woman. Despite these gruesome associations, a banshee's attentions to a family were thought to be a mark of upper class society, leading some traditional Irish families to boast of their own banshee.
(adapted from the Dictionary of Celtic Mythology and the Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, Oxford University Press)
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IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS TODAYsay something like:
"She had a real problem. I could hear her wailing like a banshee at the other end of the line."
hyperbole (a figure of speech in which a statement is exaggerated)
- to make a loud and piercing cry, scream or moan
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WORD ORIGIN
A banshee is an Irish folklore figure whose wailing songs of sorrow (called keening) foretell a family death. In the form of a solitary woman, she derives from the mythological concept of a goddess who presides over the fortunes of a family. She is generally heard at night rather than seen, though more modern versions of the myth portray her as a small, wizened old woman who combs her hair as she wails.
She may be seen as a beautiful maiden weeping for the coming death of a loved one, or she may be a horrible old woman who has come to announce the pending death. In Irish folklore, the banshee was thought to be the spirit of a woman who died in childbirth, or of a murdered pregnant woman. Despite these gruesome associations, a banshee's attentions to a family were thought to be a mark of upper class society, leading some traditional Irish families to boast of their own banshee.
(adapted from the Dictionary of Celtic Mythology and the Concise Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, Oxford University Press)
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IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS TODAYsay something like:
"She had a real problem. I could hear her wailing like a banshee at the other end of the line."
