noun

• 1informal A very stupid or glaring mistake, especially an amusing one.

  More example sentences

  • ‘the occasional schoolboy howler would amuse the examiners’
  • ‘Now mistakes - even howlers - are made by every columnist from time to time.’
  • ‘We made mistakes, we made howlers, not just me but Del and Tony alike.’
  • ‘This led him to make this mistake, a howler for anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with prominent conservative commentators.’
  • ‘None of these friends are in any way responsible for any mistakes, howlers, insults, etc., in what follows.’
  • ‘We are capable of playing breath-taking rugby, but it's a real concern that we are still making schoolboy howlers.’
  • ‘I have long been an admirer of Morris as an astute analyst of practical politics, despite his occasional lapses and howlers.’
  • ‘It led to an autumn defensive personnel nightmare that was further undermined by a collection of schoolboy howlers that embarrassed an illustrious unit.’
  • ‘The fact that he cites, in his defense, a first class degree from Cambridge ‘specializing in philosophy’ only makes more indefensible his howlers and misconceptions.’
  • ‘Generally speaking, I tend not to get too bent out of shape by occasional rhetorical howlers.’
  • ‘On the field he has been prone to howlers on the big occasion.’
  • ‘And he could hardly have had an easier task after Roy Carroll added another gaffe to this season of goalkeeping howlers by failing to hold a long-range drive from Clarence Seedorf.’
  • ‘TALKING of howlers, there was a bit of an embarrassing blooper on BBC Yorkshire's news programme last Sunday tea-time.’
  • ‘In addition to those pointed out already, your article on Lenin contains a number of other howlers.’
  • ‘A lot of suits at that price range are made by people who don't know what they're doing - watch out for howlers like 3 buttons on the cuffs, ‘keyhole’ buttonholes on the lapels etc.’
  • ‘It is full of howlers and is, in fact, an embarrassment to Scottish culture.’
  • ‘I know I commit howlers of my own from time to time; this is not so much criticism as observation and a reminder to myself of the need constantly to re-examine news items I come across.’
  • ‘No one wants howlers in their marketing slogans.’
  • ‘Now, I'll admit to a few fashion howlers in my time.’
  • ‘He could produce some howlers, and nothing he wrote could necessarily be believed.’
  • ‘I like to think I have improved no end over the last year but that doesn't mean I haven't made some real howlers along the way.’

  Synonyms

  mistake, error, blunder, fault, gaffe, slip, slip of the pen

  View synonyms

• 2

  (also howler monkey)

  A fruit-eating monkey with a prehensile tail and a loud howling call, native to the forests of tropical America.

  Genus Alouatta, family Cebidae: several species

  ‘Many smaller animals have also joined the collection: siamang gibbons, provost squirrels, howler monkey, armadillo and the elusive mona monkeys.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The dam would flood the Macal River valley - a so-called ‘Biogem’ of rain forest and fertile flood plain that is home to many endangered species like the howler monkey, jaguar, and tapir.’
  • ‘The howler monkey that Stephens observed on Barro Colorado Island was feasting on fruit near its peak ripeness - when its ethanol content is about 1 percent.’
  • ‘Every howler monkey, for example, is trichromatic.’
  • ‘Looking up with a start, she confronted a howler monkey backing down the very tree to which the washboard was attached.’