Word.ws English Dictionary

wolfishly

wolfishly adverb: in a wolfish way.

Adverb

wolfishly (comparative more wolfishly, superlative most wolfishly)

  1. In a wolfish way.
    • I […] filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch.1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], chapter 1, in Wuthering Heights: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […], →OCLC
    • He told me he would have roasted their toes rather than be baulked. I believe him. His men believed him too. They didn’t cheer aloud, being a dumb pack, but made ready wolfishly.1899 September – 1900 July, Joseph Conrad, chapter XXXVIII, in Lord Jim: A Tale, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1900, →OCLC, page 385

Examples of wolfishly in a sentence

  • Spade grinned wolfishly, showing the edges of teeth far back in his jaw.1930, Dashiell Hammet, chapter 2, in The Maltese Falcon, New York, N.Y.; London: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →OCLC:
  • They ate silently, wolfishly, and wiped up the grease with the bread.1939 April 14, John Steinbeck, chapter 26, in The Grapes of Wrath, New York, N.Y.: The Viking Press, →OCLC, page 394:
  • Roger Federer smiling wolfishly to the crowd: a return to woke?2026 February 9, Aaron Timms, “Bad Bunny and jingoism lite: was this the Super Bowl where woke roared back?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Forms of wolfishly

comparativemore wolfishly
superlativemost wolfishly
alternative formwolvishly

Origin of wolfishly

From wolfish + -ly.

Questions about wolfishly

What does wolfishly mean?
Wolfishly means in a wolfish way.
How do you use wolfishly in a sentence?
Spade grinned wolfishly, showing the edges of teeth far back in his jaw.
What part of speech is wolfishly?
Wolfishly is an adverb.

Words near wolfishly in the dictionary

  1. wolfing down
  2. wolfing up
  3. Wolfinger
  4. Wolfingers
  5. wolfish
  6. wolfishly
  7. wolfishness
  8. Wolfkill
  9. wolfkin
  10. wolfkind
  11. wolfkins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wolfishly (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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