Library / English Dictionary

WOLF

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: wolves   

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of various predatory carnivorous canine mammals of North America and Eurasia that usually hunt in packs

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("wolf" is a kind of...):

canid; canine (any of various fissiped mammals with nonretractile claws and typically long muzzles)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wolf"):

wolf cub; wolf pup (a young wolf)

Canis lupus; gray wolf; grey wolf; timber wolf (a wolf with a brindled grey coat living in forested northern regions of North America)

Arctic wolf; Canis lupus tundrarum; white wolf (wolf of Arctic North America having white fur and a black-tipped tail)

Canis niger; Canis rufus; maned wolf; red wolf (reddish-grey wolf of southwestern North America)

brush wolf; Canis latrans; coyote; prairie wolf (small wolf native to western North America)

Holonyms ("wolf" is a member of...):

Canis; genus Canis (type genus of the Canidae: domestic and wild dogs; wolves; jackals)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A cruelly rapacious person

Synonyms:

beast; brute; savage; wildcat; wolf

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("wolf" is a kind of...):

aggressor; assailant; assaulter; attacker (someone who attacks)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A man who is aggressive in making amorous advances to women

Synonyms:

masher; skirt chaser; wolf; woman chaser

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("wolf" is a kind of...):

philanderer; womaniser; womanizer (a man who likes many women and has short sexual relationships with them)

Sense 4

Meaning:

German classical scholar who claimed that the Iliad and Odyssey were composed by several authors (1759-1824)

Synonyms:

Friedrich August Wolf; Wolf

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Instance hypernyms:

classical scholar; classicist (a student of ancient Greek and Latin)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Austrian composer (1860-1903)

Synonyms:

Hugo Wolf; Wolf

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Instance hypernyms:

composer (someone who composes music as a profession)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Eat hastily

Example:

The teenager wolfed down the pizza

Synonyms:

wolf; wolf down

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Hypernyms (to "wolf" is one way to...):

eat (take in solid food)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They wolf more bread

Credits

 Context examples: 

Taxonomic family which includes the domestic dog, wolves and foxes.

(Canidae, NCI Thesaurus)

And so those two brave-hearted fellows made their way amidst the yelping roughs, like two wounded lions amidst a pack of wolves and jackals.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The study in the journal PLOS Biology lists what the authors say are the world's 10 most charismatic animals: tigers, lions, elephants, giraffes, leopards, pandas, cheetahs, polar bears, gray wolves and gorillas.

(Study: Popularity of Wildlife Can Harm Public's Perception, VOA)

The coat averages 1-3 inches in length and comes in white, black and white, wolf gray, wolf sable (red undercoat with dark gray outer coat), or red, often with darker highlights and sometimes with a dark mask or cap. Height: 22-26 inches (56-66 cm.) Weight: 70-95 pounds (32-43 kg.)

(Alaskan Malamute, NCI Thesaurus)

Not a word would our captive say, but he glared at us from the shadow of his matted hair, and once, when my hand seemed within his reach, he snapped at it like a hungry wolf.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb—so near a wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It was a pictorial sheet, and Jo examined the work of art nearest her, idly wondering what fortuitous concatenation of circumstances needed the melodramatic illustration of an Indian in full war costume, tumbling over a precipice with a wolf at his throat, while two infuriated young gentlemen, with unnaturally small feet and big eyes, were stabbing each other close by, and a disheveled female was flying away in the background with her mouth wide open.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses’ feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“We’ll see to that,” Wolf Larsen answered, and elevated his voice in a call of “Cooky!”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)