Hardly anything is more intensely disagreeable to one walking along the street, than to hear near his path a low savage growl—the expression of a surly dog's opinion and purpose.

A deep growl was the answer I received, and the bear, for such it was, walked quickly away in the same direction whence he had come.

Riding down the main thoroughfare, the growl of his stomach taints the soothing jazz playing on the radio.

The Welsh farmer, strong, broad-shouldered and blue-eyed, acknowledged Willie's presence by an unintelligible ejaculation which sounded very much like a growl, and with not very cheerful hospitality pushed a chair towards him. […] [T]he farmer swallowed his broth in huge spoonfuls, alternating with growls, […]

One of the shows we saw was Captain Beefheart at the Finsbury Park Astoria, now the Rainbow Theatre. It was one of my all-time favorite shows, the Captain an outrageous character who defied all bounds of middle-class taste with his Delta-blues growl and made-up language.

The growl effect comes from fitting a small straight mute—a cornet mute for trumpet and a trumpet mute for trombone—covering the instrument's bell with a rubber plunger, the kind used by plumbers, and moving it in and out to affect the tone.

Just as [Duke] Ellington the composer was not the originator of the growls, moans, and other expressive devices that jazz musicians developed from European instruments, neither was he the particular techniques he used at the piano. It was the wealth of possibilities he uncovered for combining, simplifying, expanding, or even distorting the common jazz piano vocabulary of the day that put Ellington in a class by himself.

Let bears and lions growl and fight, / Let bears and lions growl and fight, / For 'tis their nature too, / For 'tis their nature too.

"All's for the worst" is a very common motto, and under its influence there are thousands who growl when they go to bed, and growl still louder when they get up; who growl at their breakfast, who growl at their dinner, who growl at their supper, and who growl between meals. Discontent is written in every feature of their visage; […]

Lord Derby growled,—growling especially at Mr. [William Ewart] Gladstone,—and the Archbishop of Canterbury growled, and the Bishop of Oxford growled, and the Marquis of Bath (a good Conservative) growled, but he (the Marquis) growled at the Government rather than at the Bill.

April woke in darkness to the sound of Baron growling. Not that she could hear the dog, exactly. He was far out in the backyard at the edge of the woods. […] April waited for the dog to settle down. Instead, his growling grew deeper.

And he is bending in the wind, scooping pitch, growling. […] He plays his false fingers. Chokes the trumpet. He is naked. This is naked jazz. O-bop-she-bam. Never lying. Telling it like it is.

James "Bubber" Miley "used to growl all night long, playing gutbucket on his horn. That was when we decided to forget all about the sweet music."

The old man growled his displeasure at the postman.

Bastane, as he entered, growled an invective, while he sullenly expressed his discontent at an unexpected call and additional labour.

[…] John Gilmore would take up his tenor and growl a keening march, Danny Thompson stab and worry with a flute, Sun Ra leave his big conga and mount the temple of keyboards for a ritual parenthesis of chromatic zig-zags and electro-howls.

Growl

Meaning

Noun

Verb

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