Word.ws English Dictionary

whistling for

whistling for is the present participle and gerund of whistle for.

Meaning of whistle for

Verb

whistle for (third-person singular simple present whistles for, present participle whistling for, simple past and past participle whistled for)

  1. (idiomatic) To request or ask for with no chance of success.
    • If we wanted something we could whistle for it - but if the Australians wanted something you'd got to get it for them, or else.2009, Max Arthur, We Will Remember Them: Voices from the Aftermath of the Great War, →ISBN
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see whistle, for.

Questions about whistling for

What is whistling for the present participle and gerund of?
Whistling for is the present participle and gerund of whistle for.

Words near whistling for in the dictionary

  1. whistling Dixie
  2. whistling down the wind
  3. whistling duck
  4. whistling ducks
  5. whistling face syndrome
  6. whistling for
  7. whistling hare
  8. whistling hares
  9. whistling in the dark
  10. whistling in the wind
  11. whistling kite

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whistling for (page history and authors); whistle for (page history and authors). 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.

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