A growl is a guttural, harsh, very low-pitched, regularly pulse-modulated sound of usually long duration produced with the mouth slightly open – sometimes with the lip curled up and exposed teeth – during a slow steady exhalation. It resembles a deep r-like trilling sound: [ɡʀː], a vocalic [ʀː], a [ɹ̰ː] or a rhotic [ʌ], occasionally beginning with an [m]. Used to signal danger or to warn or scare off an opponent. A snarl is a louder and more aggressive [æːo̰]. These sounds are used to signal danger or to warn or scare off an opponent, often intertwined or merged with howls and hisses.

The image to the right shows the phonetic characteristics (waveform, spectrogram and pitch (F0) contour) and gives a short audio example of a domestic cat growl. Further examples can be found below.