whistle
/ˈwɪs(ə)l/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.88 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A device designed to be placed in the mouth and blown, or driven by steam or some other mechanism, to make a whistling sound.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
The mouth and throat; so called as being the organs of whistling.
Colloquial; Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "A lovely crisp exhaust: a feeling of almost unlimited power combined with complete freedom of running: and, to crown it all, a most melodious and wholly American chime whistle—these were my immediate impressions as we stormed rapidly out of Göttingen, intent on winning back some of the lost time."
- "One thing I took great care to observe was obedience to the "whistle" boards which crop up with great frequency, for failure to sound the whistle, if observed by the gendarmerie, can bring about serious consequences."
- "[...] and Temple station, which had to have a very modestly proportioned station building on the insistence of the Duke of Norfolk who owned the land on which it was built, and where the trains under the glass roof of the station were not allowed to blow their whistles, at the insistence of the barristers in the nearby Inns of Court."
- "We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine.[…]As we reached the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the platform as the train pulled up at the other."
- "the whistle of the wind in the trees"
- "We soldiers changed into our No.1 dress uniforms, Sid into his best whistle and we set off for the church."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: whistel, hwistle, whistlen, hwistlan, *hwistlōn, *hwistlōną