shriek

To shriek is to scream in a high piercing voice. A sound that goes straight through the head.

It is higher and sharper than a shout and shorter than a wail, and English attaches it to fright and to delight equally, since children shriek with laughter as readily as with fear. Machinery shrieks too, as brakes and gulls do. As a noun, a shriek of laughter is a common phrase and so is a shriek of brakes. Screech is its close cousin and belongs more often to sound than to voice.