Whistler
//ˈʍɪslə(ɹ)// name, noun, slang
name, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 Someone or something that whistles, or who plays a whistle as a musical instrument.
- 2 Australian and southeastern Asian birds with a melodious whistling call wordnet
- 3 Any of several passerine birds of the genera Pachycephala and Coracornis, of Australasia and the western Pacific.
- 4 large-headed swift-flying diving duck of Arctic regions wordnet
- 5 Any bird that whistles or is noted for its whistling vocalisations (applied regionally to various specific species).
"The lether-winged Bat, dayes enimy, / The ruefull Strich, still waiting on the bere, / The Whistler shrill, that who so heares, doth dy […]"
Show 8 more definitions
- 6 large North American mountain marmot wordnet
- 7 A goldeneye (any of certain ducks of genus Bucephala).
- 8 someone who makes a loud high sound wordnet
- 9 A whistling marmot (Marmota caligata).
- 10 A mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa).
- 11 An audio-frequency electromagnetic wave produced by atmospheric disturbances such as lightning.
- 12 A broken-winded horse.
- 13 The keeper of a whistling shop, or shebeen. obsolete, slang
Proper Noun
- 1 A surname. countable
- 2 A placename:; A resort town in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, British Columbia, Canada. countable, uncountable
- 3 A placename:; A mountain in British Columbia, Canada; in full, Whistler Mountain. countable, uncountable
- 4 A placename:; A neighbourhood of Prichard, Mobile County, Alabama, United States, named after George Washington Whistler. countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"The lether-winged Bat, dayes enimy, / The ruefull Strich, still waiting on the bere, / The Whistler shrill, that who so heares, doth dy […]"
Etymology
Etymology 1
From Middle English whisteler, whistlar, whystelare, from Old English hwistlere (“a player on a flute; a piper”), equivalent to whistle + -er.
Etymology 2
Continuing the Middle English Wistler, Wyzelere, an occupational surname from the Old English hwistlere (“piper”).
Related phrases
More for "whistler"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.