Word.ws English Dictionary

have the wolf by the ear

have the wolf by the ear verb: to be in a dangerous situation from which one cannot disengage, but in which one cannot safely remain.

Verb

have the wolf by the ear (third-person singular simple present has the wolf by the ear, present participle having the wolf by the ear, simple past and past participle had the wolf by the ear)

  1. (idiomatic) To be in a dangerous situation from which one cannot disengage, but in which one cannot safely remain.

Synonyms of have the wolf by the ear

Forms of have the wolf by the ear

third-person singular presenthas the wolf by the ear
present participlehaving the wolf by the ear
past participlehad the wolf by the ear
pasthad the wolf by the ear

Origin of have the wolf by the ear

Initially attributed to Roman Emperor Tiberius circa year 1 AD by biographer C. Suetonius Tranquillus. United States, 1820, Thomas Jefferson, writing about the institution of slavery and the Missouri Compromise: : "But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." :: — Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes (discussing slavery and the Missouri question), Monticello, 22 April 1820

Questions about have the wolf by the ear

What does have the wolf by the ear mean?
Have the wolf by the ear means to be in a dangerous situation from which one cannot disengage, but in which one cannot safely remain.
What part of speech is have the wolf by the ear?
Have the wolf by the ear is a verb.
What is the past tense of have the wolf by the ear?
The past tense of have the wolf by the ear is had the wolf by the ear.

Words near have the wolf by the ear in the dictionary

  1. have the run of
  2. have the sun in one's eyes
  3. have the tiger by the tail
  4. have the time
  5. have the wind up
  6. have the wolf by the ear
  7. have the world by the bag
  8. have the world by the balls
  9. have the world by the neck
  10. have the world by the nuts
  11. have the world by the tail

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have the wolf by the ear (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-have the wolf by the ear.ogg.

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