These words all refer to a voice raised in excitement or urgency. Although each word suggests most readily a particular emotion, all have been used interchangeable to pertain to any expression of intense feeling: joy, anger, pain, grief, despair, amazement, resentment and many others. All of them, furthermore, pertain to one person’s tone of voice, but are commonly used for groups of people when one wishes to suggest that the group responds almost unanimously to some event with a single reaction.

Cry , shout and yell are the most general, emphasizing mainly the loudness of a voice or voices: a cry of delight; a tortured cry ; a shout of approval that rang through the hall; a yell for help. Cry particularly suggests a surprised or involuntary response. In an informal context, however, cry is especially associated with emotions that result in tears; the woman who sat down and had a good cry . This informal use is sometimes present as an overtone in other uses of the word: watching him leave and crying for him to come back. Yell is especially relevant to a situation in which someone is calling for help: hoping their yells would carry far enough to be heard. Yell also has a particular use of cries of enthusiasm at sports event, either spontaneous or planned: supporters who urged on their team with a concerted yell ; yells of "Murder him" that echoed above the boxing ring. Shout can related to the situation of seeking help, but is also pertains particularly to the emotion of anger: an apoplectic shout from her husband that rang through the café.

Bellow and roar relate to this aspect of shout in being most appropriate for angry cries . Bellow suggests deepness of voice as well as loudness and thus implies a man’s voice or a group dominated by men; it is also used for enraged animals, such as an angered bull: the platoon sergeant’s bellow of disgust; a furious bellow from the wounded bull. Roar also suggests anger when it refers to a single person, but it is especially appropriate need not necessarily be that of unanimous anger, but of a mingling of diverse emotions: the roar of praise and disapproval that swelled through the theatre. Roar can, of course, also refer to any loud mingling of noises, neither human nor animal: the roar of the printing presses.

Shriek and scream refer most appropriately to cries of pain, terror or surprise: the shriek of a woman trapped under piles of debris. In sharp contrast to bellow , shriek suggests high-pitched sound, discordant, grating or whining: The woman’s shriek of terror carried farther than the man’s enraged bellow . Because of this implication, shriek is sometimes used of birds: the shriek of gulls above the harbour. Like shriek , scream often implies a high-pitched, piercing sound: the scream of a siren. But it emphasizes loudness more than pitch, and more often than shriek may apply to hysterical or panicky shouts of men as well as women: Clutching his crushed foot, he let out a scream of pain. Both shriek and scream may be used hyperbolically in situations suggesting intense surprise: When she opened the present she gave a little shriek of joy; a scream of delight. And both are commonly used to describe the shouts of children.

Outcry relates to shriek as it pertains to cries of pain. But its most specific use is for an outburst of indignation, usually from a group of people: neighbours who watched the murder but made no outcry . The sense of protest is present even in metaphorical uses: newspaper editorials that cause a public outcry against such indifference.