Word.ws English Dictionary

wolf's head

wolf's head noun: in mediaeval times, an outlaw; one who may be slain without judicial enquiry.

Noun

wolf's head (plural wolf's heads)

  1. (UK, obsolete) In mediaeval times, an outlaw; one who may be slain without judicial enquiry.
    • “Bonny times,” he said, “I have lived to see, when a lad of Earl Oslac’s blood is sent out of the land, a beggar and a wolf’s head, for playing a boy’s trick or two, and upsetting a shaveling priest.”.1866, Charles Kingsley, Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 48

Forms of wolf's head

pluralwolf's heads

Origin of wolf's head

Calque of Latin caput lupinum.

Questions about wolf's head

What does wolf's head mean?
Wolf's head means in mediaeval times, an outlaw; one who may be slain without judicial enquiry.
What part of speech is wolf's head?
Wolf's head is a noun.
What is the plural of wolf's head?
The plural of wolf's head is wolf's heads.

Words near wolf's head in the dictionary

  1. wolf willow
  2. wolf worm
  3. wolf worms
  4. wolf's bane
  5. Wolf's Castle
  6. wolf's head
  7. wolf's heads
  8. wolf's milk
  9. wolf's peach
  10. wolf's peaches
  11. wolf's ticket

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wolf's head (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:

Cite this entry: “wolf's head.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wolf%27s_head. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.