howler

Meaning

Noun

• That which howls, especially an animal such as a wolf or a howler monkey.
• A person hired to howl at a funeral.
• A painfully obvious mistake.
• A hilarious joke.
• A bitterly cold day.
• A person who expresses aggression openly in the form of threats.
• A heavy fall.
• A serious accident (especially to come a howler or go a howler; compare come a cropper).
• A tremendous lie; a whopper.
• A fashionably but extravagantly overdressed man, a "howling swell".
• A 32-ounce ceramic, plastic, or stainless steel jug used to transport draft beer.

Origin

• howl + -er. Some senses are derivatives of the intensifier "howling", as in "howling wilderness", (Deuteronomy 32:10)