Whistle

How to spell whistle

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce whistle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does whistle mean?

1. verbTo produce a clear, high-pitched sound by forcing breath through pursed lips or a small device.
2. nounA small device that makes a high, sharp sound when air is blown through it, or the sound itself.

Whistle in a sentence

• verb

  He likes to whistle softly while he works in the garage.

• noun

  The lifeguard kept a silver whistle on a cord around her neck.

• verb

  The referee began to whistle to stop the match.

• noun

  The train let out a long whistle as it left the station.

Where does whistle come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Whistle comes straight from Old English, where the verb hwistlian meant to make a clear, high sound by forcing breath through pursed lips, and the related noun hwistle named the sound itself. The word is imitative in origin, meaning it was coined to echo the very noise it describes, much like hiss or buzz. It belongs to a small family of Germanic words built on a whis- or hwis- base suggesting a soft, breathy sound, and it has cousins in the old Scandinavian languages. The modern spelling preserves two quiet traps: the initial wh-, a leftover of the Old English hw- cluster, and the silent t that sits between the s and the -le. That silent t is why the word is so easy to misspell, since the ear hears no trace of it, yet it has been written in the word for over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• whistl- (from Old English hwistlian, to whistle)
• -e (silent ending); note the silent t before the -le