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howling

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

The act of producing howls.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

howling

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈhaʊlɪŋ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The act of producing howls.

adjective

  1. That causes one to howl or feel like howling; deeply distressing.

  2. colloquial

    Used as an intensifier

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Primarily written

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The act of producing howls.

Used this way, howling is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

howling wildernesshowling windhowling likehowling mobhowling stormhowling wolfdog howlinghowling gale

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • howlnounBase word

    A long loud emotional utterance.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • howlernounPerson or profession

    A joke that seems extremely funny.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • howler monkeynounRelated term

    Monkey of tropical South American forests having a loud howling cry.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: producing howls

yelling

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.