lupine

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of numerous plants of the genus Lupinus in the pea family, having palmately compound leaves and variously colored flowers grouped in spikes or racemes.
2. adj. Characteristic of or resembling a wolf.
3. adj. Rapacious; ravenous.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Like a wolf; wolfish; ravenous.
2. In zoology, pertaining to the series or group of canine animals which contains the wolves, jackals, and dogs, as distinguished from the foxes; thoöid. In lupine animals the skull has frontal sinuses which affect the profile of the head and the contour of the cranial cavity, and the pupil of the eye is usually round. See vulpine, alopecoid, and thoöid.
3. n. A plant of the genus Lupinus. The white lupine, L. albus, of southern Europe and the Orient, has been cultivated from antiquity. Its seeds serve as a pulse, and its herbage is valuable for fodder and green manure. In Portugal it is used, under the name of tramoso, to choke out obstinate weeds. The scented yellow lupine, L. luteus, of the Mediterranean region, is used in central Europe to improve sandy soils. Various other species have similar uses, among them the Egyptian L. Termis, resembling L. albus, and L. varius, with flowers chiefly blue. The tree-lupine, L. arboreus, of Pacific North America, has been used with success to bind shifting sand. It is a shrub growing 10 feet high, and sending its roots more than 20 feet deep. The ornamental lupines are extremely numerous. L. albus, L. luteus, and L. varius, mentioned above, were formerly common in gardens, but have been somewhat superseded by species from western America. Among these are the tree-lupine and the many-leafed lupine (L. polyphyllus) of North America and L. versicolor of Peru. The wild lupine of the eastern United States is L. perennis, a plant with a long showy raceme of purple flowers, common in sandy soil.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Of, or pertaining to, the wolf.
2. adj. Wolflike; wolfish.
3. adj. Having the characteristics of a wolf.
4. adj. Ravenous.
5. n. Any leguminous plant of the genus Lupinus, some poisonous.
6. n. An edible lupine seed.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A leguminous plant of the genus Lupinus, especially Lupinus albus, the seeds of which have been used for food from ancient times. The common species of the Eastern United States is Lupinus perennis. There are many species in California.
2. adj. Wolfish; ravenous.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. of or relating to or characteristic of wolves
2. n. any plant of the genus Lupinus; bearing erect spikes of usually purplish-blue flowers