whistle, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

whistle n.

[? the sounds]

1. (also whistle-trap) the mouth, the throat; see also wet one’s whistle under wet v.

c.1386		implied in wet one’s whistle under wet v.
1613		Beaumont & Fletcher Coxcomb II ii: Let’s have no pity [...] here’s that shall cut your whistle.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: whistle a derisory Term for the Throat.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1776		Chester Chron. 14 Mar. 4/1: Madge had taken a drap, just to moisten her whistle.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Whistle. The throat.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1821		W.T. Moncrieff Tom and Jerry II i: With all my heart, only let me sluice my whistle first.
1848		Bartlett Dict. Americanisms.
1859		G.A. Sala Twice Round the Clock 125: All in consequence of their (or his) refusal to pay for a bottle of soda-water, [he] was fined heavy sums — the aggregate cost of his whistle being about six pounds.
1860		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 Feb. 4/1: His conk and left peeper were swollen and the claret was still visible from his whistle-trap.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 54/1: Summat to moisten the whistle with.
1933		‘William Juniper’ True Drunkard’s Delight 243: The throat, which is also known as [...] whistle.
1953		N. Bentley Third Party Risk (1961) 111: You’d better keep your dirty whistle shut.

2. in fig. use of sense 1, taste, appetite.

1672		J. Phillips Maronides (1678) VI 106: And if their appetites be sharp / Put but their hands down, there’s stew’d Carp; / Or else as they their whistles vary / [...] / Whole shoals of Salmon ready drest.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime 276: Skinned by a cook; ’tis paying for one’s whistle / A rather costly [...] price.

3. a eunuch.

1732

Ladies Delight 12: Some Virtuosi have thought of improving their trees for some purpose, by taking off the Nutmegs, which is however a bad way; they never seed after, and are good for little more than making whistles of.

4. the penis [resemblance; Williams notes the ‘lascivious’ 17C stories/ballads of the ‘Carman’s whistle’; see also whistle and bells ].

1843		Gleaner (Manchester, NH) 12 Aug. n.p.: If madam big-bug can’t get single whistles to play upon she takes double ones. An old widower’s will answer if no other is at end.
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 35: Penis [...] whistle.

5. the lungs.

1917

Wash. Post 21 Jan. 2/8: My wind was nicked. Guess me whistle was blinked wid de scags.

6. a call, a warning.

1955

B. Hill Boss of Britain’s Underworld 13: If you find them, give us a whistle on the blower.

7. (US black) a firearm.

1999		Buckshot ‘I’ll Be Damned’ 🎵 Let the doors get loose when the whistle pop.
2004		Simon & Price ‘Moral Midgetry’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 8 [TV script] You were too busy shittin’ yourself with that whistle to your dome.
2008		R. Price Lush Life 10: I need me a onetime whistle .

In compounds

whistle and bells (n.)

the penis and testes.

1795

D. McCulloch ‘Todlen Hame’ in Burns Merry Muses of Caledonia (1965) 79: A tight, caller hizzie, as keen as oursels, / Ay ready to souple thewhistle and bells!!!

whistle-wetter (n.) [backform. wet one’s whistle under wet v.]

an alcoholic drink.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 16 June 31/1: Terrick took a modest whistle-wetter.
1916		Mixer & Server 25 59/1: The saloon patron obtained a drink [...] and could have enjoyed a nice bit of appetizing lunch while partaking of his whistle wetter .
1949		QST June 57/2: Registration, $1.50, includes all the food and whistle-wetter you can hold.
1954		Holiday 15 92/2: Many aficionados of whiskey-on-the-rocks have dubbed their favorite whistle wetter a New Fashioned.
1980		G. Kanin Moviola 201: Pour me a shot, will you, Lionel? Just a wee one. A little whistle-wetter.
1995		B. Schopen Desert Look 77: I might could use a whistle- wetter [...] Barkeep, set up a pair of them monster brewskis.
2003		P. Granger Widow Ginger [ebook] Luigi’s taking Betty to the pictures tomorrow and for a bite and a whistle-wetter after.

In phrases

blow someone’s whistle (v.)

(US gay) to fellate.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

SE in slang uses

In compounds

whistle bait (n.) [one at whom men whistle]

1. (US) an attractive woman.

1943		Chicago Trib. Graphic Section 26 Dec. 7/1: Jive Talk [...] Boy-Crazy. Lap-happy. Guy-goony. Khaki-wacky. Neck-happy. Whistle bait. Hot chick. Bundle bunny.
1945		Yank (Far East edn) 24 Mar. 18/2–3: Some of today’s teen-agers – pleasantly not many – talk the strange new language of ‘sling swing.’ In the bright lexicon of the good citizens of tomorrow [...] A pretty girl is ‘whistle bait.’.
1957		F. Brown Lenient Beast n.p.: Her name was Rhoda Stern. She didn’t have to tell us that she wasn’t whistle bait, if she ever had been.
1969		TV Guide 38/2: A pale, blonde, attractive girl who was described in The New York Times as: ‘Aristocratic whistle bait’.
1976		(con. 1942) J. Lee Ninth Man 186: I know a couple of girls [...] Real whistle bait.
1988		S. Isaacs Shining Through 33: While I wasn't whistle-bait, I looked pretty nice in a dress and heels.
2006		E. Martin Busy Bodies 128: It was nice to be whistle bait but so many men just could not resist grabbing a handful.
2010		L.A. Kurk Glass Girl 70: You know you’re whistle bait, don’t you? [...] You’re beautiful so you attract a lot of whistles.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1981

Lacy & Morgan Leg Art 70: Even when the years began slipping by, Bardot maintained her whistle-bait looks.

whistle-belly thumps (n.) [rumbling and the pain in the stomach]

stomach aches associated with diarrhoea.

1997–2001

Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 whistle belly thumps n 1. stomach aches associated with diarrhea. (‘Those green apples I ate are giving me the whistle belly thumps.’).

whistle-belly vengeance (n.) [var. on whip-belly (vengeance) under whip v.¹; the rumbling it produces in the drinker’s stomach]

bad or thin beer.

1836		Fraser’s Mag. Feb. 235/2: The liquor [...] pardon the expression [...] came under the the denomination of ‘whistle-belly vengeance’.
1845		J. Mills Our Hearth & Homestead II 120: He had the stiff, stark-naked impudence to call my best tap whistle-belly-vengeance.
1861		T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 449: ‘I thought you wouldn’t appreciate the widow’s tap,’ said East, watching him with a grin: ‘Regular whistle-belly vengeance, and no mistake.’.

whistle-dick (n.)

(US) a term of abuse.

2020

C. Hiaasen Squeeze Me 177: ‘The agency gets raked by every whistle-dick [...] in Washington’.

whistle-drunk (adj.) [despite appearances, there seems to be no connection between this and whistled adj.]

very drunk.

1749

Fielding Tom Jones (1959) 390: He was indeed, according to the vulgar phrase, whistle-drunk; for before he had swallowed the third bottle, he became so entirely overpowered, that though he was not carried off to bed until long after, the parson considered him as absent.

In phrases

a whistle away from (adj.) [? SE wolf-whistle (current first recorded use: US 1944); NB within (a) cooee of under cooee n.]

(US black) very close to.

1971

B. Short Black and White Baby 55: Bless their hearts, many of the [social club] members themselves were only a whistle away from poverty row.

blow the whistle (on) (v.)

1. to bring to an end.

1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 180: Shortly after Claude went limping past the 40th Mile Stone, he had to blow the Whistle on Friend Wife, who was getting ready to send Daughter to Europe and put Son in Yale.
1934		Wodehouse Right Ho, Jeeves 182: Now the whistle had been blown on his speech.
1953		R. Chandler Long Good-Bye 37: But it still works. Come on, Marlowe. I’m blowing the whistle on you.
1959		S. Bellow Henderson The Rain King 119: She may have been a hot lay once [...] But time and nature had blown the whistle on her and she was badly ravaged.
1971		Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 138: It seemed incredible to me that Madeline Bassett should have blown the whistle on their engagement.

2. to inform against someone.

1938		D. Runyon ‘Baseball Hattie’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 654: He fears that she may blow a whistle on this enterprise without realising what she is doing.
1943		R.L. Bellem ‘Dead Man’s Shakedown’ in Dan Turner Detective Mar. 🌐 Then she put the chew on Sid — and he rubbed her out tonight to keep her from blowing the whistle on him.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 156: Although he threatened to blow the whistle, no one cared or was scared or threw in with him.
1960		(con. WWII) R. Leckie Marines! 42: Don’t blow the whistle on him [...] you can’t blame him for blowing his stack.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 37: These chumps blow the whistle on each other.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 86: He blew the whistle on the last guy. The last time they rewarded a guy for blowing the whistle, they had white blackbirds.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 143: He [...] told me that he was about to blow the whistle on Glentabbot Properties Ltd.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 64: When you blow the whistle on these bastards, she turns around and says, ‘It’s my family. I’m leaving.’.
2000		Observer Screen 16 Jan. 8: The man who blew the whistle on the inner workings of the US tobacco industry.
2008		R. Price Lush Life 209: [...] to keep him from blowing the whistle on Sputnik and Skeezix, two Alphabet City detectives who had burned him in a drug deal.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 117: Their own kith and kin walked in to blow the whistle on the family firm.

3. to moralize.

1963

in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 57: Look at these here big shots – always blowing the whistle [...] Our city this, our city that.

whistle to whistle

(US) of a sports event, from the beginning to the end.

1984

D. Jenkins Life Its Ownself 76: ‘Tell ’em how you went whistle to whistle against Rice one time when you had three broken ribs and a sore on your dick’ .