Definitions

Sorry, no definitions found. Check out and contribute to the discussion of this word!

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word water-wolf.

Examples

  • I love tossing tiny dries as much as the next guy, but for sheer excitement nothing beats chucking a huge topwater pattern to the water-wolf!!!

    Try Pike On The Fly 2009

  • I love tossing tiny dries as much as the next guy, but for sheer excitement nothing beats chucking a huge topwater pattern to the water-wolf!!!

    Try Pike On The Fly 2009

  • Writers to bee called the Tyrant of the Rivers, or the Fresh water-wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, devouring disposition; which is so keen, as Gesner relates, a man going to a Pond

    The Compleat Angler 2007

  • Then the water-wolf rushed forward and sat upon him as he lay there, and raised aloft her own sharp dagger to drive it into his breast; but Beowulf shook her off, and sprang up, and there, on the wall, he saw hanging a strange old sword that had been made in the old times, long, long ago, when the world was full of giants.

    Milly and Olly Humphry Ward 1885

  • So he threw his own sword aside and took down the old sword, and once more he smote the water-wolf.

    Milly and Olly Humphry Ward 1885

  • Down he sank, deeper and deeper into the water, among strange water beasts that struck at him with their tusks as he passed them, till at last Grendel's mother, the water-wolf, looked up from the bottom and saw him coming.

    Milly and Olly Humphry Ward 1885

  • And then he turned from the horrible water-wolf and raised his sword and struck her on the head; but his blow did her no harm.

    Milly and Olly Humphry Ward 1885

  • Under the leaves of these hides himself that fish which old anglers named the water-wolf, the pickerel, who preys upon his smaller brothers and sisters.

    Confessions of Boyhood John Albee 1874

  • Tyrant of the Rivers, or the Fresh water-wolf, by reason of his bold, greedy, devouring disposition; which is so keen, as _Gesner_ relates, a man going to a Pond (where it seems a _Pike_ had devoured all the fish) to water his Mule, had a _Pike_ bit his Mule by the lips, to which the

    The Complete Angler 1653 Izaak Walton 1638

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • (noun) - In drinking out of a stream, a man is said to "swallow a water-wolf" which, it is said, lives and grows in his stomach.

    --Sidney Addy's Glossary of . . . Sheffield Yorkshire, 1888

    January 14, 2018