wolf
wolf Lexical Profile
wolf Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A wild, carnivorous mammal of the dog family (Canidae), native to Eurasia and North America, known for living and hunting in hierarchical packs.
"The deep howl of a lone wolf echoed through the snowy pine forest at midnight."
A fiercely rapacious or destructive person, or metaphorically, a man notoriously known for aggressively pursuing women.
"The young entrepreneur was warned about the wolves on Wall Street who would eagerly take advantage of his inexperience."
• verb
To devour food greedily or ravenously (often followed by 'down').
"After hiking all day on the mountain, he proceeded to wolf his dinner in mere minutes."
Word Nuance & Usage
Take care to distinguish the spelling of the plural noun form ('wolves') from the regularized third-person singular present verb form ('wolfs', as in 'he wolfs down his food').
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
From Old English 'wulf', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch 'wolf' and German 'Wolf', from an Indo-European root shared by Latin 'lupus' and Greek 'lukos'.