Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a whisky-flask.

1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 175: English Whisky-flask ... [...] Amer. Tramp Dialect The Growler.
1930		G. Milburn ‘The Hobo Mandalay’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 77: With her head upon my shoulder / At the second growler full.

2. (US) a container, usu. a covered pail with a carrying handle, in which beer is purchased at a tavern, then brought home for consumption; thus growler money, growler boy, growler bag .

1883		Trenton (NJ) Times 20 June 2/2: The growler is the latest New York institution. It is a beer can, the legitimate outgrowth of the enforcement of the Sunday liquor law. Young men stand on the sidewalk and drink their beer out of a can, which, as fast as emptied, is sent to be refilled where-ever its bearer can find admittance. It is called the growler because it provokes so much trouble in the scramble after beer.
1884		Forest and Stream (N.Y.) 4 Dec. 369: ‘Mister, please give me a penny to fill me mother’s growler.* I had six cents and lost one o’ them down a grating, and she’ll beat me if I go home without the beer.’ *Originally ‘growler’ was applied by city tramps to the empty fruit caps into which they emptied stale beer from the kegs on the sidewalk. This act was termed ‘working the growler,’ but the word now covers, in low life, any receptacle for beer.
1891		J.A. Riis How the Other Half Lives 217: The ‘growler’ stood at the cradle of the tough [...] From the moment he, almost a baby, for the first time carries the growler for beer, he is never out of its reach, and the two soon form a partnership that lasts through life.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 39: The Property Man, carrying a foam-topped growler, discreetly done up in a newspaper.
1905		N.Y. Press sect 3 1/5–7: A growler bag is something in size and shape like the green bags lawyers use to carry their papers in, only it is cut ‘fuller,’ so as to fit the shape of the pall or pitcher it is designed to conceal. With the growler hidden in its bag it is considered perfectly proper for the women as well as the men of the family to purvey liquid refreshment from its source to the thirsty household.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 27: Me? I’d pinch the harp and pawn it for ten growlers of Dutch beer and some man-sized rum!
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 4: He was always after my mother for the price of a growler of beer.
c.1930		(ref. to late 19C) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 205: Mr Moore sipped from the growler.
1940		E. O’Neill Iceman Cometh Act I: Their sea is a growler of lager and ale.
2016		warwickrealale.co.uk 🌐 Want to drink craft beer the way it's intended to be served? Come down and grab your own Beer Growler today. The freshness of the beer, usability of the growler and the quantity that can be stored within, makes the growler the best way to enjoy a craft beer.

3. (US prison) any form of container, used for coffee, conveying illicit homebrewed alcohol etc.

1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 87/1: Growler. 1. (P) The coffee pot or can, especially in prisons where cooking is forbidden and the brewing of coffee is done surreptitiously. 2. (P) The container in which home-made alcoholic brew is brought from the place of concealment to a place where it may be drunk with least risk. 3. A large tin can, bucket, pitcher, etc.
1977		(con. 1920s–30s) S. McAughtry Sinking of the Kenbane Head 21: Hanging up in the bunker was a ‘growler’ – a 7lb jam tin with a wire strung across for a handle.