growl

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English[edit]

WOTD – 16 March 2019

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English groul, groulen, grollen, gurle, gurlen (“of the bowels: to growl, rumble”), either possibly from Old French groler (variant of croler (“to be agitated, shake”)), grouler, grouller (“to growl, grumble”),[1] or from Old English gryllan, both from Proto-Germanic *gruljaną (“to make a sound; to growl, grumble, rumble”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰer- (“to make a noise; to mumble, murmur; to rattle; to grind; to rub, stroke”), probably ultimately imitative. The word is cognate with Middle Dutch grollen (“to make a noise; to croak, grumble, murmur; to be angry”) (modern Dutch grollen (“to grumble”)), German grollen (“to rumble; to be angry, bear ill will”), Old English grillan, griellan (“to provoke, offend; to gnash the teeth”). Compare grill.

The noun is derived from the verb.[2]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

growl (plural growls)

  1. A deep, rumbling, threatening sound made in the throat by an animal.
  2. (by extension) The rumbling sound made by a person's stomach when hungry.
  3. (by extension) An aggressive grumbling.
    • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave I. Marley’s Ghost.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], OCLC 55746801, page 18:
      The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's-buff.
  4. (jazz, by extension) A low-pitched rumbling sound produced with a wind instrument.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

Verb[edit]

growl (third-person singular simple present growls, present participle growling, simple past and past participle growled)

  1. (intransitive) To utter a deep guttural sound, as an angry animal; to give forth an angry, grumbling sound.
    Synonyms: gnar, gnarl, gurl, snarl
    The dog growled at me as I walked past.
  2. (intransitive, jazz) Of a wind instrument: to produce a low-pitched rumbling sound.
  3. (intransitive, software) To send a user a message via the Growl software library.
  4. (transitive) To express (something) by growling.
    The old man growled his displeasure at the postman.
  5. (transitive, jazz) To play a wind instrument in a way that produces a low-pitched rumbling sound.

Derived terms[edit]

Terms derived from growl (verb)

Translations[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ “grollen, v.” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 13 November 2018.
  2. ^ “growl, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1900; “growl, v.3”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1900.

Further reading[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

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