Word.ws English Dictionary

whistler

/ˈʍɪslə(ɹ)/

whistler noun: someone or something that whistles, or who plays a whistle as a musical instrument.

whistler: someone or something that whistles, or who plays a whistle as a musical instrument
Image: JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

whistler (plural whistlers)

  1. Someone or something that whistles, or who plays a whistle as a musical instrument.
  2. Any of several passerine birds of the genera Pachycephala and Coracornis, of Australasia and the western Pacific.
  3. Any bird that whistles or is noted for its whistling vocalisations (applied regionally to various specific species).
    • The lether-winged Bat, dayes enimy, / The ruefull Strich, still waiting on the bere, / The Whistler shrill, that who so heares, doth dy […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
  4. A goldeneye (any of certain ducks of genus Bucephala).
  5. A whistling marmot (Marmota caligata).
    Synonyms:
    hoary marmot
  6. A mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa).
  7. An audio-frequency electromagnetic wave produced by atmospheric disturbances such as lightning.
  8. A broken-winded horse.
  9. (obsolete, slang) The keeper of a whistling shop, or shebeen.

Proper noun capitalized: Whistler

Whistler (countable and uncountable, plural Whistlers)

  1. (countable) A surname.
  2. A resort town in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, British Columbia, Canada.
  3. A mountain in British Columbia, Canada; in full, Whistler Mountain.
  4. A neighbourhood of Prichard, Mobile County, Alabama, United States, named after George Washington Whistler.

whistler meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

whistler in Tamil

விசிலர், விச்லர், விஸ்ட்லர்

whistler in Urdu

سیٹی بجانے والا

whistler in Bengali

হুইসেলার

whistler in Telugu

విస్లర్, విజ్లర్
More languagesFewer languages
whistler in Malayalam
വിസ്ലർ, വിസ്റ്റ്ലർ, വിസിലർ
whistler in Kannada
ವಿಸ್ಲರ್
whistler in Odia
ହୁଇସ୍ଲର୍, ହୁଇସ୍ଲର, ହୁଇସେଲର
whistler in Nepali
ह्विसलर, ह्विस्लर

Synonyms of whistler

Forms of whistler

Noun
pluralwhistlers
Proper noun
pluralWhistlers
alternative formWissler
alternative form (obsolete)Whiseller
alternative form (obsolete)Whisler

Plural of whistler: whistlers

Origin of whistler

From Middle English whisteler, whistlar, whystelare, from Old English hwistlere (“a player on a flute; a piper”), equivalent to whistle + -er.

Continuing the Middle English Wistler, Wyzelere, an occupational surname from the Old English hwistlere (“piper”).

Words formed from whistler

  • Mount Whistler
  • Whistler-Blackcomb
  • Whistler-Blackcomb-Creekside
  • Whistler-Creekside
  • Whistleresque
  • Whistlerian
  • Whistlerism
  • Whistler Mountain
  • Whistler Resort Community
  • Whistler Village
  • Baliem whistler
  • bare-throated whistler
  • Biak whistler
  • Bismarck whistler
  • black-chinned whistler
  • black-headed whistler
  • Bornean whistler
  • Bougainville hooded whistler
  • brown-backed whistler
  • brown whistler
  • drab whistler
  • fawn-breasted whistler
  • Fiji whistler
  • Gilbert's whistler
  • golden-backed whistler
  • golden whistler
  • green-backed whistler
  • grey whistler
  • Guadalcanal hooded whistler
  • hooded whistler
  • island whistler
  • Lorentz's whistler
  • Louisiade whistler
  • mangrove golden whistler
  • mangrove whistler
  • maroon-backed whistler
  • New Caledonian whistler
  • olive whistler
  • oriole whistler
  • red-lored whistler
  • regent whistler
  • Rennell whistler
  • rufous whistler
  • rusty-breasted whistler
  • rusty whistler
  • Samoan whistler
  • Sangihe whistler
  • Sclater's whistler
  • sulphur-bellied whistler
  • Temotu whistler
  • Tongan whistler
  • Vanuatu whistler
  • Vogelkop whistler
  • Wallacean whistler
  • western whistler
  • white-breasted whistler
  • white-vented whistler
  • yellow-bellied whistler
  • yellow-throated whistler

Questions about whistler

What does whistler mean?
Whistler means someone or something that whistles, or who plays a whistle as a musical instrument.
What is whistler in Tamil?
Whistler in Tamil is விசிலர், விச்லர், விஸ்ட்லர். See Whistler meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is whistler?
Whistler can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce whistler?
Whistler is pronounced /ˈʍɪslə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of whistler?
The plural of whistler is whistlers.

Words near whistler in the dictionary

  1. whistlefish
  2. whistlegraph
  3. whistlegraphing
  4. whistleless
  5. whistlelike
  6. whistler
  7. Whistleresque
  8. Whistlerian
  9. Whistlerism
  10. whistlers
  11. whistles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whistler (page history and authors); Whistler (page history and authors); whistler (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); whistler (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); whistler (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); whistler (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); whistler (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); whistler (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); whistler (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); whistler (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-whistler.ogg.

Cite this entry: “whistler.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whistler. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.