howling

1. 1
   adjective

   Producing long, mournful cries, as a dog, a wolf, or the wind in a storm.

   The howling pack circled the campsite as the fire died down.

   Sailors struggled against a howling gale off the coast.

   Similarroaring, shrieking, screaming

   Note

   This adjective grew from the Middle English present participle howlinge, not from the gerund behind the noun for the act. It travels easily from animals to people and weather: a howling mob at the door, a howling brute, a howling gale. Because it names a sound actually made, it takes no degrees (nothing is more howling than something else), which keeps it apart from the intensifier, where no sound need be heard.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of howl.

   The wolves were howling at the edge of the camp.

   Howling into the storm, the sailors fought to be heard.

   Note

   As a participle it pairs with be to form the progressive: the dogs were howling. The verb can also take an object, so people go howling their protest or howling abuse at a referee. As a gerund it still behaves like a verb and takes objects and adverbs. The plain noun, by contrast, takes the and of, and it can be made plural.

3. 3
   adjectivecolloquial

   Used to intensify another word, emphasizing how extreme or complete something is, as in a howling success.

   The festival was a howling triumph, drawing record crowds.

   The whole scheme collapsed into a howling disaster within weeks.

   Similarroaring, resounding, complete, total, utter

   Note

   In colloquial English the word works as a booster, and it gravitates toward good news: a howling success, a howling triumph. It can also sit before another adjective and act like an adverb, as in howling good story, the phrase Wulf Moon puts in his 2023 title. Keep it for informal writing. In a formal report, a howling success reads as breezy.

   We threw a howling good party for her retirement.

   The bake sale turned out to be a howling success.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The act of producing long, mournful cries.

   The howling of the wolves echoed across the frozen valley.

   We heard a faint howling drifting in from the hills.

   Similarbaying, wailing, yowling

   Note

   Two different -ing endings meet in this word. The noun comes from the Middle English gerund howlynge, a name for the action, while the adjectives grow from the present participle. As a true noun it can take an article and a plural, as in the howlings of the pack. The verb's -ing form cannot be pluralized, which is the easiest way to tell the two apart.

5. 5
   adjective

   Causing such grief or pain that one feels like crying out; deeply distressing.

   The survivors endured a howling misery through the long winter.

   A howling sense of loss overwhelmed her at the funeral.

   Similarharrowing, agonizing, anguished

   Note

   Less a sound than a condition: howling hunger, howling chaos, and above all the fixed phrase howling wilderness, a land so desolate it seems to cry out. Peter Holland titles his 2013 book A Home in the Howling Wilderness. The adjective fastens on empty places and disordered states, and in howling chaos it already leans toward the colloquial intensifier.

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