| Library / English Dictionary |
HOWLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A long loud emotional utterance
Example:
their howling had no effect
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("howling" is a kind of...):
utterance; vocalization (the use of uttered sounds for auditory communication)
Derivation:
howl (laugh unrestrainedly and heartily)
howl (emit long loud cries)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Extraordinarily good or great; used especially as intensifiers
Example:
a tremendous achievement
Synonyms:
fantastic; grand; howling; marvellous; marvelous; rattling; terrific; tremendous; wonderful; wondrous
Classified under:
Similar:
extraordinary (beyond what is ordinary or usual; highly unusual or exceptional or remarkable)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb howl
Context examples:
No; it was St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane—the howling darkness—and stood before me: the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
As slumber gradually stole upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming on across the flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy apprehension of the great deep rising in the night.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I roared as loud as I could, and the nag came galloping towards me, whereupon she quitted her grasp, with the utmost reluctancy, and leaped upon the opposite bank, where she stood gazing and howling all the time I was putting on my clothes.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
It was only yesterday that we had an infernal Dutchman here howling about some arrears of interest and the deuce knows what. ‘My good fellow,’ said I, ‘as long as the Commons starve me, I have to starve you,’ and so the matter ended.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Now, Laurie felt just then that his heart was entirely broken and the world a howling wilderness, but at the sound of certain words which the old gentleman artfully introduced into his closing sentence, the broken heart gave an unexpected leap, and a green oasis or two suddenly appeared in the howling wilderness.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
His dream was merging into something else—he knew not what; but through it all, following him, persisted the howling.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling; the dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling; and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Surely I hear those brutes still howling upon our track.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I was prodding for my food into a camp-kettle when they were howling for their pap.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The howling of the wild dogs was henceforth heard no more; they had disappeared, and the country was freed from the trouble.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
