whistling buoy

American  

noun

Nautical.

1. a buoy having a whistle operated by air trapped and compressed in an open-bottomed chamber by the rising and falling water level caused by natural wave action.

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Example Sentences

Water trickles melodically through Teddington lock; a ship's bell tolls; a whistling buoy on the estuary duets with a fog horn; the struts of the millennium bridge sing.

From The Guardian • Apr. 15, 2010

And on the reef the whistling buoy bellows like a sad and patient bull.

From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

The wind blew freshly in from the whistling buoy and the barking of sea lions came from around the point.

From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

It is a fabulous place: when the tide is in, a wave-churned basin, creamy with foam, whipped by the combers that roll in from the whistling buoy on the reef.

From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck

He felt sympathy, but it was like the tinkling of a far-off sheep-bell—the moaning of a whistling buoy heard over the thrash of night-black waves on a stormy sea.

From The Titan by Dreiser, Theodore