whistle

The throat. It is never used in this sense except in the phrase to 'wet one's whistle,' to take a draught of liquor. It is a corruption of weesle; an old term for the weasand, or windpipe.--Craven Dialect.

So was hire joly whistle wel ywette.--Chaucer, Reeve's Tale.

Let's turn to the fire, drink the other cup to wet our whistles.--Izaak Walton.

Youn' John seem'd nut at all to be

A chip ov the old block;

To see some wet their whistles so,

It oft gave him a shock.--John Noakes, Essex Dialect, p. 7.

I can talk all day, and most of the night, only stopping to wet my whistle.--J. C. Neal, Peter Brush.

TO WHISTLE

To whistle before you are out of the woods, i. e. to exult before you are out of danger.

But let not the Pennsylvanians rejoice--let them not whistle before they are out of the woods. The duties on iron will have to come down too.--N. Y. Tribune.