howling success

Idioms  

1. A tremendous triumph, as in Their first play was a howling success. This colloquial expression employs howling in the sense of “very pronounced” or “glaring,” a usage dating from the mid-1800s.

---

Example Sentences

To help Ball with State's paper work, Kennedy named George McGhee, an able administrator who had been less than a howling success as State's Counselor and Policy.

From Time Magazine Archive

I hope their prisoner self-help rehabilitation program is the howling success it deserves to be.

From Time Magazine Archive

From the U. S. Treasury's standpoint, the excess-profits tax of 1918 was a howling success.

From Time Magazine Archive

There is a chance that a howling success here will make it his "second" opera.

From Time Magazine Archive

The thing was, though, there was almost nothing in the twenty-seven volumes about the Dresden raid, even though it had been such a howling success.

From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut