whistler

See also: Whistler

English

Etymology

From Middle English whisteler, whistlar, whystelare, from Old English hwistlere (“a player on a flute; a piper”), equivalent to whistle +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʍɪslə(ɹ)/, (wine–whine merger) /ˈwɪslə(ɹ)/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

whistler (plural whistlers)

1. Someone or something that whistles, or who plays a whistle as a musical instrument.
2. Any of several passerine birds of the genera Pachycephala and Coracornis, of Australasia and the western Pacific.
3. Any bird that whistles or is noted for its whistling vocalisations (applied regionally to various specific species).
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     The lether-winged Bat, dayes enimy, / The ruefull Strich, still waiting on the bere, / The Whistler shrill, that who so heares, doth dy […]

4. A goldeneye (any of certain ducks of genus Bucephala).
5. A whistling marmot (Marmota caligata).
6. A mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa).
7. An audio-frequency electromagnetic wave produced by atmospheric disturbances such as lightning.
8. A broken-winded horse.
9. (slang, obsolete) The keeper of a whistling shop, or shebeen.

Synonyms

• (whistling marmot): hoary marmot

Derived terms

Species of whistler, family Pachycephalidae

• Baliem whistler
• bare-throated whistler
• Biak whistler
• Bismarck whistler
• black-chinned whistler
• black-headed whistler
• Bornean whistler
• Bougainville hooded whistler
• brown-backed whistler
• brown whistler
• drab whistler
• fawn-breasted whistler
• Fiji whistler
• Gilbert's whistler
• golden-backed whistler
• golden whistler
• green-backed whistler
• grey whistler
• Guadalcanal hooded whistler
• hooded whistler
• island whistler
• Lorentz's whistler
• Louisiade whistler
• mangrove golden whistler
• mangrove whistler
• maroon-backed whistler
• New Caledonian whistler
• olive whistler
• oriole whistler
• red-lored whistler
• regent whistler
• Rennell whistler
• rufous whistler
• rusty-breasted whistler
• rusty whistler
• Samoan whistler
• Sangihe whistler
• Sclater's whistler
• sulphur-bellied whistler
• Temotu whistler
• Tongan whistler
• Vanuatu whistler
• Vogelkop whistler
• Wallacean whistler
• western whistler
• white-breasted whistler
• white-vented whistler
• yellow-bellied whistler
• yellow-throated whistler

 

Translations

someone or something that whistles

• Finnish: viheltäjä (fi) (man or animal), vihellin (device)
• French: siffleur (fr)
• Italian: fischiatore m
• Ottoman Turkish: دودوكجی (düdükçü)
• Russian: свисту́н (ru) m (svistún), свисту́нья (ru) f (svistúnʹja), свисто́к (ru) m (svistók) (device)
• Spanish: silbador (es) m
• Turkish: düdükçü (tr)

whistling marmot — see hoary marmot

goldeneye

• Finnish: telkkä (fi)
• Italian: quattrocchi f

physics: audio-frequency electromagnetic wave

• Finnish: matalataajuinen radioaalto

Anagrams

• whirtles