Growl

How to spell growl

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce growl

What does growl mean?

1. verbTo make a low, threatening rumbling sound, as an angry dog does, or to speak in such a tone.
2. nounA low, rumbling, threatening sound made by an animal or in an angry voice.

Growl in a sentence

• verb

  The dog began to growl when a stranger approached the gate.

• noun

  A deep growl from the kennel warned us to keep our distance.

• verb

  He tends to growl at his colleagues before his first coffee.

• noun

  There was an unmistakable growl in his voice when the bill arrived.

Where does growl come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Growl is an imitative word, meaning its very sound was meant to copy the low, rumbling noise it describes. It appears in late Middle English as groulen or grollen, probably reinforced by similar sound words in Dutch and Low German such as grollen, meaning 'to rumble' or 'to be angry'. The earliest senses referred both to the rumbling of the bowels and to the menacing noise made by an angry animal, and over time the animal sense became dominant. Because the word was built from sound rather than from a classical root, it has no hidden silent letters; the spelling simply records the 'gr' opening and the 'ow' vowel that imitate the noise. The same family of expressive 'gr' words gives us grumble, grunt, and groan, all of which share that throaty, complaining quality.

How the word is built

• growl (an imitative root mimicking a low rumbling sound) used as a single unanalysable word