A loud public show of anger from a lot of ordinary people about something they think is wrong. An outcry is not one person shouting: it is many voices at once — letters, protests, phone calls to the radio, a storm of posts online, questions in parliament. It is the word news reports reach for when the public reacts badly to a decision: 'the plan was dropped after a public outcry'. Usually countable and singular ('there was an outcry', 'a huge outcry'), and it takes 'over' or 'against' for the cause: an outcry over the price rise, an outcry against the new law. Common partners are public, national, international, widespread, huge. Note what it implies — enough noise to matter, often enough to force someone to change their mind, which is why 'after an outcry' so often ends with a government backing down. The older, literal meaning of a single loud shout still exists in old books, but modern English uses the public-anger sense almost every time.