growl
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: groul
ipa: /ɡɹaʊl/
ipa: /ɡɹaʊl/
rhymes: -aʊl
Forms: form: growls
Etymology: From Middle English groulen, grollen, 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”), from Frankish *grullen, *gruljan 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.
Senses: examples: text: Hardly anything is more intensely disagreeable to one walking along the street, than to hear near his path a low savage growl—the expression of a surly dog's opinion and purpose.
ref: 1857 June, S. H. L., “Growl”, in E. F. Blake et al., editors, The Yale Literary Magazine: […], volume XXII, number VII, New Haven, Conn.: Published by Thomas H. Pease; printed by T. J. Stafford, →OCLC, page 287:
text: A deep growl was the answer I received, and the bear, for such it was, walked quickly away in the same direction whence he had come.
ref: 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 282:
glosses: A deep, rumbling, threatening sound made in the throat by an animal.
glosses: A similar sound made by a human.
examples: text: Riding down the main thoroughfare, the growl of his stomach taints the soothing jazz playing on the radio.
ref: 2004, Rique Johnson, chapter 2, in Whispers from a Troubled Heart, Largo, Md.: Strebor Books, →ISBN, page 21:
glosses: The rumbling sound made by a human's hungry stomach.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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, page 18:
text: The Welsh farmer, strong, broad-shouldered and blue-eyed, acknowledged Willie's presence by an unintelligible ejaculation which sounded very much like a growl, and with not very cheerful hospitality pushed a chair towards him. […] [T]he farmer swallowed his broth in huge spoonfuls, alternating with growls, […]
ref: 1864 July, Robert M. Anderson, “Over the Plains”, in The Dollar Monthly Magazine, volume XX, number 1 (number 115 overall), Boston, Mass.: Office American Union, Flag of Our Union, and Novelette […], →OCLC, page 44, column 1:
text: One of the shows we saw was Captain Beefheart at the Finsbury Park Astoria, now the Rainbow Theatre. It was one of my all-time favorite shows, the Captain an outrageous character who defied all bounds of middle-class taste with his Delta-blues growl and made-up language.
ref: 2014, Billy Idol, “Sucking in the ’70s”, in Dancing with Myself, New York, N.Y.: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, part I (London), page 44:
glosses: An aggressive grumbling.
examples: text: The growl effect comes from fitting a small straight mute—a cornet mute for trumpet and a trumpet mute for trombone—covering the instrument's bell with a rubber plunger, the kind used by plumbers, and moving it in and out to affect the tone.
ref: 2013, Stephen Feinstein, quoting John Chilton, “Duke Ellington”, in Incredible African-American Jazz Musicians, Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, →ISBN, page 28:
text: Just as [Duke] Ellington the composer was not the originator of the growls, moans, and other expressive devices that jazz musicians developed from European instruments, neither was he the particular techniques he used at the piano. It was the wealth of possibilities he uncovered for combining, simplifying, expanding, or even distorting the common jazz piano vocabulary of the day that put Ellington in a class by himself.
ref: 2014, Bill Dobbins, “Duke Ellington and the World of Jazz Piano”, in Edward Green, Evan Spring, editors, The Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington (African-American Collective Biographies), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 197:
qualifier: jazz
glosses: A low-pitched rumbling sound produced with a wind instrument.
glosses: Death growl
Derived terms: death growl
growlf
undergrowl
Related terms: grr