Wolf definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (57)

American Heritage Dictionary (11)

noun Either of two carnivorous mammals of the family Canidae, especially the gray wolf of northern regions, that typically live and hunt in hierarchical packs and prey on livestock and game animals.
noun The fur of such an animal.
noun Any of various similar or related mammals, such as the hyena.

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Century Dictionary (35)

Maned wolf Canis jubatus, a long-legged, conspicuously colored species, about the size of the common wolf, found in parts of southern Brazil and northern Argentina. Attention is called to the fact that the attitude generally given to the South American maned wolf in museums and figures is incorrect, the creature carrying its head very low. Nature, Oct. 30, 1902, p. 661.
Marsupial wolf the thylacine or zebra-wolf of Tasmania, Thylacinus cynocephalus. See cut under thylacine.
A digitigrade carnivorous canine quadruped, Cants lupus, of the lupine or thoöid series of Canidæ; hence, some similar animal. The common wolf of Europe, etc., is yellowish or fulvous-gray, with harsh strong hair, erect pointed ears, and the tail straight or nearly so. The height at the shoulder is from 27 to 29 inches. Wolves are swift of foot, crafty, and rapacious, and destructive enemies to the sheep-cote and farm yard; they associate in packs to hunt the larger quadrupeds, as the deer, the elk, etc. When hard pressed with hunger these packs not infrequently attack isolated travelers, and have been known even to enter villages and carry off children. In general, however, wolves are cowardly and stealthy, approaching sheepfolds and farm-buildings only at dead of night, making a rapid retreat if in the least disturbed by a dog or a man, and exhibiting great cunning in the avoidance of traps. Wolves are still numerous in some parts of Europe, as France, Hungary, Spain, Turkey, and Russia; they probably ceased to exist in England about the end of the fifteenth century, and in Scotland in the first part of the eighteenth century; the latter date probably marks also the disappearance of wolves in Ireland. The wolves of North America are of two very distinct species. One of these is scarcely different from the European, but is generally regarded as a variety, under the name of C. l. occidentalis. The usual color is a grizzled gray, but it sports in many colors, as reddish and blackish. Most strains of the American wolf are larger and stouter than those of Europe. The gray wolf is also called the buffalo-wolf, from its former abundance in the buffalo-range, and timber-wolf, as distinguished from the prairie-wolf or coyote, Canislatrans, a much smaller and very different animal, which lives chiefly in open country, in burrows in the ground, and in some respects resembles the jackal. (See coyote, with cut.) Yet other wolves, of rather numerous species, inhabit most parts of the world; some grade into jackals (see Thous), others toward foxes (see fox-wolf); and most of them interbreed easily with some varieties of the dog of the countries they respectively inhabit, the dog itself being a composite of a mixed wolf ancestry (see wolf-dog, 2).

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Examples (50)

The allo leaped for a wolf—but the wolf was already moving out of the way, while three on the other side moved in close, their riders lifting their weapons. — Alien Plot by Piers Anthony
You, perhaps, think that a wolf is a wolf, and there is but one kind. — The Young Voyageurs Boy Hunters in the North
To them the cry of a wolf was the cry of a real wolf, the forest was dark, lonely and uncomfortable, but it was empty of any foe, and the four who had come to them were merely trying to create a sense of their own importance. — The Shadow of the North A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign
The horse went on feeding As soon as the wolf was able to get up, he went groaning out of the field. — Fifty Famous Fables
But remember that you must be as silent as the wolf is at night, when he prowls around the pens. — The Scarlet Pimpernel

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lion · beast · fox · dragon · cat · deer · bear · monster · rat · elephant · hound · rabbit

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

American Heritage Dictionary (1)

Middle English, from Old English wulf; see wl̥k^wo- in Indo-European roots.

Century Dictionary (2)

from Middle English wolf, wulf, wlf, wlfe (plural wolves, wulves, wolwes, wulfes), from Anglo-Saxon wulf (plural wulfas) = Old Saxon wulf = OFries. wolf = Dutch wolf = Middle Low German Low German wulf = Old High German Middle High German G. wolf = Icelandic ūlfr (for *vulfr) = Swedish ulf = Danish ulv = Gothic (Moesogothic) wulfs = Old Bulgarian vlŭkŭ = Russian volkŭ = Lithuanian wilkas = Latin lupus (later Italian lupo = Spanish Portuguese lobo = French loup) = Greek λύκος = Sanskrit vrika, a wolf; orig. type prob. *walka, *warka, altered variously into *wlaka (Greek λύκος), *wlapa (Latin lupus), *walpa (Anglo-Saxon wulf, etc.), orig. ‘tearer, render,’ from √ wark, Sanskrit √ vraçch, tear, Greek έλκειν, pull. L. vulpes, fox, is prob. not connected. Wolf, as a complimentary term for a warrior, is a constituent of many English and G. names, as in Adolph, ‘noble-wolf,’ Rudolph, ‘glory-wolf,’ etc. Cf. werwolf, lupine, lycanthropy, etc.
from wolf, n.

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