Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a noisy objection, a complaint.

1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 289: Radicalism raised such an infernal howl [...] the organization was finally abandoned.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 11/2: Mr. Dan O’Connor’s plan for Remenyi to play for the funds to erect a monument at Kendall’s grave is a splendid satire; and now the howl is again floating on the Waverly winds about the neglected condition of the poet’s last resting-place […].
1896		Anaconda Standard (MO) 23 Sept. 5/3: Dey sets up a howl dat Bryan is off his nutt.
1907		S.E. White Arizona Nights 23: I didn’t blame them for raisin’ their howl.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 51: All of a sudden something happened that caused a grand howl.
1915		Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 286: The papers raised a howl.
1928		D. Hammett ‘This King Business’ Story Omnibus (1966) 125: Why not give Grantham his crown now? [...] Push it through. You can do it. There’ll be a howl, of course.
1937		(con. 1905–25) E.H. Sutherland Professional Thief (1956) 181: I like the climate in spite of all the howls you hear about it.
1940		O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 162: I don’t like it – there’ll be a howl aroun’ here.
1950		J. Weidman Price Is Right 96: She was advised that [...] her six months’ howl for relief on the switchboard would have to be pigeonholed indefinitely.
1963		R.M. Ludwig Aspects of Amer. Poetry 108: There’ll be a howl. They won’t like it.
2005		Jack Egan ‘One Who Will’ 76: I thought, you know, if I pick him on reputation, there’ll be a howl all round.

2. a miserable person.

1912

E. Pugh Harry The Cockney 191: ‘O, don’t be a howl, ‘Arry!’ he implored me.

3. a highly amusing story, situation, experience or person.

1939		J. Weidman What’s In It For Me? 37: To me, these guys with their fancy codes of honour were a howl.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 6 June [synd. col.] I love the squawk [...] that The New Republic articles (about some legislators) are ‘smears’. The howl is this: The mag merely reprinted their voting records [...] from the Cong. Record .
1960		(con. 1940s) D. MacCuish Do Not Go Gentle (1962) 93: This is going to be a real howl.
1971		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 13: Count Five claimed to have turned down ‘a million dollars in bookings’ [...] What a howl!
1989		H. Leonard Out After Dark 19: A distant grumble of laughter confirmed that The Young Man from Rathmines was, as the curate predicted, a howl.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 413: Oil and water, those two. Tight? What a howl.