Meaning

A deep, rumbling, threatening sound made in the throat by an animal..

Definitions by Sense

1. A deep, rumbling, threatening sound made in the throat by an animal.
2. (by extension) A similar sound made by a human.
3. (by extension) The rumbling sound made by a human's hungry stomach.
4. (by extension) An aggressive grumbling.
5. (jazz, by extension) A low-pitched rumbling sound produced with a wind instrument.
6. (by extension) Death growl
7. (intransitive) To utter a deep guttural sound, as an angry animal; to give forth an angry, grumbling sound.
8. (intransitive, jazz) Of a wind instrument: to produce a low-pitched rumbling sound.

Example Sentences

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.

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.

Riding down the main thoroughfare, the growl of his stomach taints the soothing jazz playing on the radio.

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.

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, […]

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.

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.

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.

Word Forms

• growls
• growling
• growled
• groil
• groul

Synonyms for growl

Related Words

When Should You Use Growl?

Use growl when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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