English

Noun

howler ‎(plural howlers)

1. That which howls, especially an animal which howls, such as a wolf or a howler monkey.
2. A person hired to howl at a funeral

Other senses are derivatives of the intensifier "howling",^[1] as in "howling wilderness", (Deuteronomy 32:10)^[2]

1. A painfully obvious mistake.
   • 2009, Tom Burton, Quadrant, November 2009, No. 461 (Volume LIII, Number 11), Quadrant Magazine Limited, page 78:

     A howler is a glaring mistake, a mistake that cries out to be noticed.

2. A hilarious joke.
3. A bitterly cold day
4. A heavy fall, literally or figuratively
5. A serious accident (especially to come a howler or go a howler, e.g. "Our hansom came a howler"; compare: come a cropper)
6. A tremendous lie
7. A fashionably but extravagantly overdressed man, a "howling swell"
8. A calamity howler is "one that makes dismal predictions of impending disaster"^[3]

Translations

References

1. ↑ Beale, Paul; Partridge, Eric (1984). A dictionary of slang and unconventional English: colloquialisms and catch-phrases, solecisms and catachreses, nicknames, and vulgarisms. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-02-594980-2
2. ↑ Holy Bible: King James Version, The Scofield Study Bible III, Duradera Zipper Black. Oxford University Press, USA. 2005. ISBN 0-19-527867-4.
3. ↑ Taylor, D. Wooster. The dust of Frisco Town, dedicated to the calamity howler. Publisher: Paul Elder, San Francisco May be downloaded from: http://archive.org/details/dustoffriscotown00taylrich