English

Noun

growler ‎(plural growlers)

1. A person, creature or thing that growls.
2. (historical, slang) A cab with four wheels.
   • 1887, A. Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, Part 2 Ch. 7

     The ordinary London growler is considerably less wide than a gentleman's brougham.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 254:

     Lew pulled his socks from a jacket pocket, grabbed his own shoes, and together they proceeded to the street and into a growler, and were off.

3. A small iceberg or ice floe which is barely visible over the surface of the water.
   • 2002, Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage 2003, p. 152:

     A great ‘growler’ iceberg was sighted this afternoon at a distance of approximately half a mile; the size of a large London house, more or less.

   • 2007, Matthew Taylor, The Guardian, 24 November 2007 :

     As the cruise ship Explorer was picking its way through the Antarctic sea ice, it hit what experts believe was a "growler" - a huge iceberg shorn from the Antarctic ice shelf.

4. (informal) A kind of jug used to carry beer (in current usage, a 2-liter or 64-ounce container with or without a handle; sometimes extended to similarly shaped 32-ounce jug, but not bottles).
   • 1940, Eugene O'Neill, The Iceman Cometh, Act 1

     ... their favoring breeze has the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath, and their sea is a growler of lager and ale ...

   • 2002, Louis M. Soletsky, 100 Years of Medicine, iUniverse, ISBN 9780595229253, page 104:

     This container was a round lidded tin with a handle and was colloquially called a growler. […] to get daddy or mommy a growler of beer, which was, by the way, approximately a quart.

5. (dialect, Britain, Yorkshire) A pork pie.
   • 2008, Christina McDermott, The Guardian, 22 August 2008 :

     Now, on first impression, a pork pie - or a ‘growler’ if you're from Yorkshire - looks like a delicious snack.

6. (Britain, slang) The ****.
   • 2007, Cesca Martin, Agony Angel, Troubadour Publishing 2007, pp. 125-6:

     On our first meeting he'd asked me if I dyed my hair. I told him I did and his follow up^[sic] question had been the much under rated^[sic], "What colour's your growler then?"