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piercing

[peer-sing]

Example Sentences Origin

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adjective

loud or shrill, as the quality of a voice.

extremely cold or bitter: a piercing wind.

appearing to gaze deeply or penetratingly into something: piercing eyes.

perceptive or aware; acute: a piercing mind.

sarcastic or caustic; cutting: piercing remarks.

Origin:
1375–1425; late Middle English; see pierce, -ing²

Related forms

pierc·ing·ly, adverb

pierc·ing·ness, noun

un·pierc·ing, adjective

Synonyms
1. grating, strident, screeching.

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Piercing is always a great word to know.

So is doohickey. Does it mean:

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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Example Sentences

Some people say their heritage makes piercing meaningful.

We know about your whole piercing debate with your family.

Witnesses spoke of his piercing blue eyes, smart clothes, easy charm and swagger.

EXPAND

Some people say their heritage makes piercing meaningful.

We know about your whole piercing debate with your family.

Witnesses spoke of his piercing blue eyes, smart clothes, easy charm and swagger.

Call: a piercing sheck sheck sheck and a descending harsh shhhhhkk.

His piercing eyes were set in a deeply creased, mahogany face.

Science is about immersing ourselves in piercing uncertainty while struggling with the deepest of mysteries.

But the situation can be quite different when it comes to this craze: body piercing.

The train blasts out a shrill whistle which my nephew imitates intermittently for the next couple of hours with piercing accuracy.

She tried to hide the piercing from her parents by not talking, but they figured it out.

Shown here is a high-speed video in his lab of a bullet piercing eggs.

The tongue piercing one confirms many deeply held suspicions.

But the new one differs from older tunnels by piercing the base of the mountain, rather than its upper reaches.

The light, which became peculiarly piercing in the stillness around midnight, changes yet again.

In the golden age of sail, a ship's crew was focused on the shrill and piercing sound of the boatswain's whistle.

They also advise against the use of piercing guns that crush flesh rather than lacerate it and that cannot be properly sterilized.

But amid the dregs are shards of brilliant, piercing writing.

Floodlights, piercing the darkness, etch familiar landmarks in silver against a velvet sky.

IT is easy to pinpoint the moment when body piercing went mainstream.

At school, he was admired for sending up politicians in piercing satirical revues.

He entered wearing a dark nylon jacket, too thin for the piercing winds outside.

There is the usual mix of body piercing and hair colours not found in nature.

The sick took to their beds with fever, piercing headache, and joint pain.

Outside, night has taken over the jungle, which resounds with piercing insect calls.

The girl's piercing green eyes, shocked with hints of blue and.

Sensations of crushing, burning and piercing are the language of alert, used by our bodies to.

The piercing sound, however, seemed to come from all directions.

Her bow and stern have been steel clad with a projecting angle of iron for the purpose of piercing a vessel.

Peering inside, he poked a pencil-sized wire up into the chest, piercing the.

Square jaw, piercing eyes, topped by a shock of dark hair.

Perhaps the tortuga can peer into the depths and reveal secrets even the piercing acoustic eye of the sonar can't see.

Readers also ask about issues involving friendship, a nose piercing and accepting a birthday dinner out.

Musi wanted to light the animals in a way that would truly showcase their muscular grace, piercing gazes, and gleaming coats.

It's good, but the actual armor piercing capability is not that hot.

She was magnificently exotic, with piercing eyes and a taste for turbans and badly fitted robes.

Millions of diabetics need to take blood samples regularly by piercing their.

Tatarsky felt a sensation of instantaneous, piercing recognition.

The raw imagery is in fact filled with noise from cosmic rays piercing the camera and several other unattractive artifacts.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

verb (used with object)

to penetrate into or run through (something), as a sharp, pointed dagger, object, or instrument does.

to make a hole or opening in.

to bore into or through; tunnel.

to perforate.

to make (a hole, opening, etc.) by or as by boring or perforating.

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to make a way or path into or through: a road that pierces the dense jungle.

to penetrate with the eye or mind; see into or through: She couldn't pierce his thoughts.

to affect sharply with some sensation or emotion, as of cold, pain, or grief: The wind pierced her body. Her words pierced our hearts.

to sound sharply through (the air, stillness, etc.): A pistol shot pierced the night.

COLLAPSE

verb (used without object)

10.

to force or make a way into or through something; penetrate: to pierce to the heart.

Origin:
1250–1300; Middle English percen < Old French perc(i)er < Vulgar Latin *pertūsiāre, verbal derivative of Latin pertūsus, past participle of pertundere to bore a hole through, perforate, equivalent to per- per- + tundere to strike, beat

Related forms

pierce·a·ble, adjective

pierc·er, noun

un·pierce·a·ble, adjective

Synonyms
1. enter, puncture. Pierce, penetrate suggest the action of one object passing through another or making a way through and into another. The terms are used both concretely and figuratively. To pierce is to perforate quickly, as by stabbing; it suggests the use of a sharp, pointed instrument which is impelled by force: to pierce the flesh with a knife; a scream pierces one's ears. Penetrate suggests a slow or difficult movement: No ordinary bullet can penetrate an elephant's hide; to penetrate the depths of one's ignorance. 8. touch, move, strike, thrill.

Link To piercing

Collins

World English Dictionary

piercing (ˈpɪəsɪŋ)

—*adj*
1.	(of a sound) sharp and shrill
2.	(of eyes or a look) intense and penetrating
3.	(of an emotion) strong and deeply affecting
4.	(of cold or wind) intense or biting

—n
5.	the art or practice of piercing body parts for the insertion of jewellery
6.	an instance of the piercing of a body part

'piercingly

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

pierce

c.1300, from Anglo-Fr. perser, O.Fr. percier (11c.), probably from V.L. *pertusiare, freq. of L. pertusus, pp. of pertundere "to thrust or bore through," from per- "through" + tundere "to beat, pound," from PIE base *(s)tud- "to beat, strike, push, thrust" (see obtuse). Piercing

EXPAND

in ref. to cold, sound, etc. is recorded from early 15c.

COLLAPSE

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Matching Quote

"'Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
A shudder ran around the sky;"

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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