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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wolf.

Canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/wʊlf/Received-Pronunciation/wʊlf/General-American[wʊɫf]General-American[wɵɫf]General-American
  1. Canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily.

    countable
  2. Canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily. Any of several related canines that resemble Canis lupus in appearance, especially those of the genus Canis.

    countable
  3. A man who makes amorous advances to many women.

  4. A wolf tone or wolf note.

    The soft violin solo was marred by persistent wolves.
  5. Any very ravenous, rapacious, or destructive person or thing; especially, want; starvation.

    figuratively
    They toiled hard to keep the wolf from the door.
    the bee wolf
  6. One of the destructive, and usually hairy, larvae of several species of beetles and grain moths.

  7. A white worm which infests granaries, the larva of Nemapogon granella, a tineid moth.

  8. A wolf spider (Lycosidae spp.).

  9. An eating ulcer or sore. See lupus.

    obsolete
  10. A willying machine, that uses willow twigs to cleanse wool.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *wl̥kʷós? Proto-Indo-European *wĺ̥kʷos Proto-Germanic *wulfaz Proto-West Germanic *wulf Old English wulf Middle English wolf English 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.

verb/wʊlf/Received-Pronunciation/wʊlf/General-American[wʊɫf]General-American[wɵɫf]General-American
  1. To devour; to gobble; to eat (something) voraciously.

    transitive
  2. To make amorous advances to many women; to hit on women; to cruise for sex.

    intransitive · slang
  3. To hunt for wolves.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *wl̥kʷós? Proto-Indo-European *wĺ̥kʷos Proto-Germanic *wulfaz Proto-West Germanic *wulf Old English wulf Middle English wolf English 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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.