Word.ws English Dictionary

wolf

/wʊlf//wʊlf/

wolf noun: canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily.

wolf: canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily
Image: Gary Kramer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

wolf (plural wolves)

  1. (countable) Canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily.
    • He would listen quietly at meetings of the Politburo, or to distinguished visitors, puffing at his Dunhill pipe, doodling aimlessly - his secretaries Poskrebyshev and Dvinsky write that his pads were sometimes covered with the phrase ‘Lenin-teacher-friend’, but the last foreigner to visit him, in...1968, Robert Conquest, “The Purge Begins”, in The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 74
    Synonyms:
    grey wolf
    1. (countable) Any of several related canines that resemble Canis lupus in appearance, especially those of the genus Canis.
  2. A man who makes amorous advances to many women.
  3. A wolf tone or wolf note.
    • The soft violin solo was marred by persistent wolves.
  4. (figuratively) Any very ravenous, rapacious, or destructive person or thing; especially, want; starvation.
    • They toiled hard to keep the wolf from the door.
    • the bee wolf
  5. One of the destructive, and usually hairy, larvae of several species of beetles and grain moths.
  6. A white worm which infests granaries, the larva of Nemapogon granella, a tineid moth.
  7. A wolf spider (Lycosidae spp.).
  8. (obsolete) An eating ulcer or sore. See lupus.
    • If God should send a cancer upon thy face, or a wolf into thy side1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […], →OCLC
  9. A willying machine, that uses willow twigs to cleanse wool.
    • The loosening and purifying of the raw cotton from the various impurities , such as sand, grit, &c., is accomplished by beating with the hand, or by the Wolf machine, by means of a cylinder, the surface of which is covered with sharp iron teeth1872, Johann Rudolph von Wagner, A handbook of Chemical Technology

Verb

wolf (third-person singular simple present wolfs, present participle wolfing, simple past and past participle wolfed)

  1. (transitive) To devour; to gobble; to eat (something) voraciously.
    • "Here's these legal ferrets has got our Puddin' in their clutches, and here's us, spellbound with anguish, watchin' them wolfin' it."1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 150
    • After a wolfed burger dinner, I called the night number at Administrative Vice and inquired about known lesbian gathering places.1987, James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia
    Synonyms:
    gulp down, wolf down
  2. (intransitive, slang) To make amorous advances to many women; to hit on women; to cruise for sex.
    • [1940s Chicago punk:] ‘I’ve seen a thing or two in my time,’ he still liked to boast, ‘that was how I found out the best place for wolfin’ ain’t the taverns. It ain’t in dance halls ’r on North Clark on Saturday night. It’s in the front row in Sunday school on Sunday mornin’. Oh yeh, I know a thing...1949, Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm
  3. (intransitive) To hunt for wolves.

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Wolf

Wolf

  1. The constellation Lupus.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Wolf

Wolf (plural Wolfs)

  1. A surname transferred from the given name.
  2. A male given name.

wolf meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

wolf in Hindi

animal
भेड़िया bheṛiyā, वृक vŕk

wolf in Tamil

animal
ஓநாய் ōnāy

wolf in Marathi

animal
लांडगा lāṇḍgā, वृक vŕk

wolf in Urdu

animal
بھیڑِیا bheṛiyā, گُرْگ gurg
More languagesFewer languages
wolf in Bengali
নেকড়ে nekoṛe
wolf in Telugu
తోడేలు tōḍēlu
wolf in Malayalam
ചെന്നായ് cennāyŭ
wolf in Kannada
ತೋಳ tōḷa
wolf in Punjabi
ਬਘਿਆੜ baghiāṛa, بَگِھیاڑ baghieyāṛ
wolf in Gujarati
ભેડીયો bheḍīyo
wolf in Odia
ଗଧିଆ gadhiā
wolf in Sanskrit
वृक vṛka, श्वक śvaka
wolf in Sinhala
වෘකයා wr̥kayā
wolf in Assamese
কুকুৰনেচীয়া বাঘ kukurnesia bagh
wolf in Nepali
ब्वाँसो bwā̃so
wolf in Pashto
لېوه lewë, شرمښ šërmëẍ
wolf in Tagalog
lobo
wolf in Arabic
ذِئْب ḏiʔb, ديب dīb, ذيب ḏīb, اِلْتَهَمَ بِشَرَاهَة iltahama bi-šarāha
wolf in Malay
serigala, zib
wolf in Indonesian
serigala
wolf in Persian
گُرْگ gurg
wolf in Thai
หมาป่า mǎa-bpàa, สุนัขป่า sù-nák-bpàa, ขม้ำ khà màhm, สวาปาม swáá bpaam
wolf in Vietnamese
sói, chó sói
wolf in Myanmar
ဝံပုလွေ wampu.lwe
Kashmiri
رامہٕ ہوٗن rāmhụ hūn

Examples of wolf in a sentence

  • Vicars seated himself and began wolfing a sandwich.2013, Neil Martin, Collected Stories of the Sea:
  • [1940s Chicago punk:] ‘I’ve seen a thing or two in my time,’ he still liked to boast, ‘that was how I found out the best place for wolfin’ ain’t the taverns.1949, Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm:

All 40 example sentences with wolf

Synonyms of wolf

All synonyms of wolf

Forms of wolf

Noun
pluralwolves
Verb
third-person singular presentwolfs
present participlewolfing
past participlewolfed
pastwolfed
alternative form (rare)wolve
Proper noun
pluralWolfs

Plural of wolf: wolves

Origin of wolf

Inherited from Middle English wolf, from Old English wulf, ƿulf, from Proto-West Germanic *wulf, from Proto-Germanic *wulfaz, from Proto-Indo-European *wĺ̥kʷos. Doublet of lobo and lupus. Cognates Cognate with Scots wouf, North Frisian wulew, Saterland Frisian and German Low German Wulf, West Frisian, Alemannic German, and Dutch wolf, Bavarian bolf, bölf, Woif, Cimbrian and Mòcheno bolf, German Wolf, Luxembourgish Wollef, Vilamovian wuf, Yiddish וואָלף (volf), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk ulv, Faroese úlvur, Icelandic úlfur, Swedish ulf, ulv, Gothic 𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐍃 (wulfs); also Irish and Scottish Gaelic olc (“bad, evil”), Lepontic 𐌖𐌋𐌊𐌏𐌔 (ulkos), Manx olk (“bad”), Sanskrit वृक (vṛ́ka), Persian گرگ (gorg), Latgalian vylks, Latvian vìlks, Lithuanian vilkas, Belarusian воўк (vowk), Bulgarian вълк (vălk), Czech and Slovak vlk, Macedonian and Russian волк (volk), Polish wilk, Serbo-Croatian вук, vuk, Slovene volk, Ukrainian вовк (vovk), Albanian ujk, ulk, Latin lupus, Greek λύκος (lýkos), Hittite 𒉿𒀠𒆪𒉿𒀸, Lydian 𐤥𐤠𐤩𐤥𐤤 (walwe, “lion”), Tocharian B walkwe.

From wolf.

From Middle English and German short forms of given names containing the Germanic element "wolf".

Words formed from wolf

Phrases with wolf

133 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with wolf

Questions about wolf

What does wolf mean?
Wolf means canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily.
What is wolf in Hindi?
Wolf in Hindi is भेड़िया (bheṛiyā), वृक (vŕk). See Wolf meaning in Hindi.
How do you use wolf in a sentence?
Vicars seated himself and began wolfing a sandwich.
What part of speech is wolf?
Wolf can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce wolf?
Wolf is pronounced /wʊlf/ (UK).
What is the plural of wolf?
The plural of wolf is wolves.

Words near wolf in the dictionary

  1. Woldts
  2. wole
  3. Woleai
  4. Woleaian
  5. Woleaians
  6. wolf
  7. wolf at the door
  8. wolf back
  9. wolf bean
  10. wolf beans
  11. wolf call

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wolf (page history and authors); Wolf (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-a wolf.ogg, En-us-wolf.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wolf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wolf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.