A high-pitched sound sits high in the ear — thin, sharp, sometimes a little piercing. A child's voice, a flute, a boiling kettle, a smoke alarm: those are high-pitched. Pitch is how high or low a note is, not how strong it is, though actually people mix the two up all the time. A whisper can be high-pitched; a foghorn is low-pitched and still huge. We use it most about voices and noises, and it usually sits in front of a noun: a high-pitched scream, a high-pitched tone. Someone nervous or excited may speak in a high-pitched voice; some people just talk that way. Informal speech sometimes stretches it to a shrill, tense argument. It does not mean expensive or important, even though high does those jobs in other compounds.