howling adj.
great, extreme, pronounced; also used as adv. (see cite 1882).
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | [song title] The Howling Swell. | |
| Era (London) 6 Aug. 11/3: [The] Royal Alhambra [...] is still crowded with ‘howling swells,’ real or counterfeit. | |
| Leeds Times 27 June 6/2: As a type of a Howling Swell I cannot choose a better specimen than Captain FitzFirefly [...] who dives, hunts, fishes. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Crooked Life in Nat. Police Gaz. 6 may 6/2: ‘It’s howling cold to-night’. | |
| Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday 7 June 46/3: He’s an awful howling rough. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Oct. 9/3: The chief wound up by intimating that civilisation and Christianity and the whiteman all round were howling frauds. | |
| Manchester Courier 26 Dec. 13/4: Bill [...] I don’t think I’m a howling success as a legislator. | |
| Mr Punch’s Model Music Hall 73: No Music-hall ditty can ever be accepted as a quite infallible authority upon any social type it may undertake to depict – with the single exception, perhaps, of the Common (or Howling) Cad. | |
| Illus. Police News (London) 21 Jan. 4/1: Carriges containing exquisitely dressed women and howling swells bowled up on either side of the course. | |
| Truth (Sydney) Feb. 1/7: ‘Gammy’-handed Kaiser Wilhelm made a howling fuss over old Bismarck. | |
| Yale Yarns 56: Gad! [...] Jack, your improvised drum-major is a howlin success! | |
| ‘You Can’t Go By Looks’ Sporting Times 31 Mar. 1/4: You can’t go by looks, look at Biffy, the masher, / You would think ’im a out-and-out sooper-fine dasher / If you looked at ’is ’owlin’ get-up. | |
| In the Blood 295: The Geezers’ supper that night was a howling success. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 14 Feb. 8/2: Harries, the sharebroker who [...] was wiped out by the ’Change committee for life, promptly went on a howling spree and then cut his throat. | |
 | In the Foreign Legion 17: The fact that we were intended for the Foreign Legion was written on our military ticket in howling big red letters. | |
| Enemy to Society 76: Dear old Ravel; he was such a howling bounder! | |
| Over the Top 143: Everything went lovely and it [i.e. a play] was a howling success. | |
| Fighting Blood 361: My drink was a howling success! | |
| Vile Bodies 135: When I see a howling cad I like to tell him so. | |
| Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld) 1 Mar. 10/4: I pointas out to Mulligan that the system is a howlin’ success. | |
| Hull Dly Mail 10 Apr. 5/2: Who could forget the grandeur of the ‘two howling swells’ — the Earls of Mountararat and Tolloller. | |
| It’s Harder for Girls 16: It was long enough for dad to die, and be buried on a howling wet day. | |
| Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 54: Slip on a pair of howling knitwear. | |
| Mine Enemy Grows Older (1959) 98: Donald felt the evening was turning out a howling success. | |
| letter 12 Oct. in Joint (1972) 191: He is as howling a hetero as they get. | |
| Punch 25 Sept. 421: So you see, old boy, that while I agree with you denationalisation just isn’t on: Labour’s made such a howling mess of these industries that no one in his senses would ever buy them back! |
In compounds
see under bags n.2
(Aus.) very drunk.
| ‘Digger Smith’ in Chisholm (1951) 94: Last time I seen yeh, you an’ Ginger Mick / Was ‘owling rags, out on yer final kick.’. |
see heavy swell n.
(US) a particularly exciting individual.
| Tales of the Ex-Tanks 64: The Howlingest Thing that ever struck this community will sock it to the harpsichord [...] to-night. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
a flute.
| Paved with Gold 269: ‘The town’s been overworked,’ said the gentleman, ‘but I wouldn’t give it up in despair. You say you’ve got a lame chap can play on the “howling-stick?”’ (flute). |