growler
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈɡɹaʊlə/
Noun

growler (plural growlers)

  1. A person, creature or thing that growls.
  2. (historical, slang) A horse-drawn cab with four wheels.
    • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 254:
      Lew pulled his socks from a jacket pocket, grabbed his own shoes, and together they proceeded to the street and into a growler, and were off.
  3. A small iceberg or ice floe which is barely visible over the surface of the water.
    • 2002, Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage 2003, p. 152:
      A great ‘growler’ iceberg was sighted this afternoon at a distance of approximately half a mile; the size of a large London house, more or less.
    • 2007, Matthew Taylor, The Guardian, 24 November 2007 :
      As the cruise ship Explorer was picking its way through the Antarctic sea ice, it hit what experts believe was a "growler" - a huge iceberg shorn from the Antarctic ice shelf.
  4. (informal, North American, Australia) A kind of jug used to carry beer (in current usage, a 2-liter or 64-ounce container with or without a handle; sometimes extended to similarly shaped 32-ounce jug, but not bottles).
    • 1940, Eugene O'Neill, The Iceman Cometh, Act 1
      […] their favoring breeze has the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath, and their sea is a growler of lager and ale […]
    • 2002, Louis M. Soletsky, 100 Years of Medicine, iUniverse, ISBN 9780595229253, page 104 ↗:
      This container was a round lidded tin with a handle and was colloquially called a growler. […] to get daddy or mommy a growler of beer, which was, by the way, approximately a quart.
  5. (dialect, UK, Yorkshire) A pork pie.
    • 2008, Christina McDermott, The Guardian, 22 August 2008 :
      Now, on first impression, a pork pie - or a ‘growler’ if you're from Yorkshire - looks like a delicious snack.
  6. (British, slang) The vulva.
    • 2007, Cesca Martin, Agony Angel, Troubadour Publishing 2007, pp. 125-6:
      On our first meeting he'd asked me if I dyed my hair. I told him I did and his follow up[sic] question had been the much under rated[sic], "What colour's your growler then?"
  7. (US, dialect) A fish of the perch family, abundant in North American rivers, so named from the sound it emits.
  8. A device for checking electrical equipment for short circuits etc.
    • 1962, United States. Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training, Trade and Industry Publication (issue 3, page 32)
      Includes voltmeters, ammeters, circuit testers, armature tester (external growler), field tester, (internal growler), coil and condenser tester, etc.
    • 2013, Donny Petersen, Donny's Unauthorized Technical Guide to Harley-Davidson, 1936 to Present
      A Growler is one of the most versatile tools for electric motor service, whether a starter motor or a generator. The growler gets its name because of a growling noise it emits upon finding an electrical short.



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