whistle

A whistle.

W for whistle on a US whistle post

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪ.səl/, /ʍɪ.səl/, [-sl̩]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪ.səl/, /ˈʍɪ.səl/, [-sl̩]

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪsəl
• Hyphenation: whist‧le

From Middle English whistel, whistil, whistle, from Old English hwistle, from the verb (see below).

whistle (countable and uncountable, plural whistles)

2. A device designed to be placed in the mouth and blown, or driven by steam or some other mechanism, to make a whistling sound.
   • 1960 October, P. Ransome-Wallis, “Modern motive power of the German Federal Railway: Part Two”, in Trains Illustrated, page 611:

     A lovely crisp exhaust: a feeling of almost unlimited power combined with complete freedom of running: and, to crown it all, a most melodious and wholly American chime whistle—these were my immediate impressions as we stormed rapidly out of Göttingen, intent on winning back some of the lost time.

   • 1961 March, ""Balmore"", “Driving and firing modern French steam locomotives”, in Trains Illustrated, page 151:

     One thing I took great care to observe was obedience to the "whistle" boards which crop up with great frequency, for failure to sound the whistle, if observed by the gendarmerie, can bring about serious consequences.

   • 2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, pages 61–62:

     [...] and Temple station, which had to have a very modestly proportioned station building on the insistence of the Duke of Norfolk who owned the land on which it was built, and where the trains under the glass roof of the station were not allowed to blow their whistles, at the insistence of the barristers in the nearby Inns of Court.

3. An act of whistling.
5. A shrill, high-pitched sound made by whistling.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. […] As we reached the lodge we heard the whistle, and we backed up against one side of the platform as the train pulled up at the other.

6. Any high-pitched sound similar to the sound made by whistling.

   the whistle of the wind in the trees

7. (Cockney rhyming slang) A suit (from whistle and flute).
   • 2005, Wally Payne, A Minority of One: A Monkey's Tale Continued:

     We soldiers changed into our No.1 dress uniforms, Sid into his best whistle and we set off for the church.

8. (colloquial) The mouth and throat; so called as being the organs of whistling.
   • 1653, Iz[aak] Wa[lton], The Compleat Angler or The Contemplative Man’s Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, […], London: […] T. Maxey for Rich[ard] Marriot, […], →OCLC; reprinted as The Compleat Angler (Homo Ludens; 6), Nieuwkoop, South Holland, Netherlands: Miland Publishers, 1969, →ISBN:

     Let's […] drink the other cup to wet our whistles.

From Middle English whistlen, from Old English hwistlan, hwistlian (“to whistle”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwistlōn, from Proto-Germanic *hwistlōną (“to make a hissing sound”). Cognate with Swedish vissla (“to whistle”), Icelandic hvísla (“to whisper”), Russian свистеть (svistetʹ, “to whistle”).

whistle (third-person singular simple present whistles, present participle whistling, simple past and past participle whistled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To make a shrill, high-pitched sound by forcing air through the mouth. To produce a whistling sound, restrictions to the flow of air are created using the teeth, tongue and lips.

   Never whistle at a funeral.

   She was whistling a happy tune.

2. (transitive, intransitive) To make a similar sound by forcing air through a musical instrument or a pipe etc.

   The steam train whistled as it passed by.

   • 1941 February, Voyageur, “The Railways of Greece”, in Railway Magazine, page 67:

     It requires quite an orchestra to get a train to start; the guard blows his horn, the stationmaster rings a large bell, and the engine whistles.

3. (intransitive) To move in such a way as to create a whistling sound.

   A bullet whistled past.

4. (transitive) To send, signal, or call by a whistle.
5. (intransitive, Opus Dei, slang) To request admission to Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic organization.
   • 2024 March 16, Antonia Cundy, “The Opus Dei diaries”, in FT Weekend, page 18:

     Teena had been miserable ever since she whistled.

• whistle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Whistle in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

• Whitsel, whilest