growls

Noun

growl (plural growls)

1. A deep, rumbling, threatening sound made in the throat by an animal.
   • 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.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...
2. (broadly) A similar sound made by a human.
3. (broadly) The rumbling sound made by a human's hungry stomach.
   • Riding down the main thoroughfare, the growl of his stomach taints the soothing jazz playing on the radio.2004, Rique Johnson, chapter 2, in Whispers from a Troubled Heart, Largo, Md.: Strebor Books, →ISBN, page 21
4. (broadly) An aggressive grumbling.
   • 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...1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave I. Marley’s Ghost.”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 18
5. (broadly, jazz) A low-pitched rumbling sound produced with a wind instrument.
   • 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.2013, Stephen Feinstein, quoting John Chilton, “Duke Ellington”, in Incredible African-American Jazz Musicians, Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, →ISBN, page 28
6. (broadly) Death growl

See all 12 meanings of growl