wolf

Etymology

From Middle English wolf, from Old English wulf, ƿulf, from Proto-West Germanic *wulf, from Proto-Germanic *wulfaz, from Proto-Indo-European *wĺ̥kʷos. See also Saterland Frisian Wulf, West Frisian and Dutch wolf, German Wolf, Norwegian and Danish ulv; also Sanskrit वृक (vṛ́ka), Persian گرگ (gorg), Lithuanian vilkas, Russian волк (volk), Albanian ujk, Latin lupus, Greek λύκος (lýkos), Tocharian B walkwe). Doublet of lobo and lupus.

noun

1. 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 February 1953, noted that he was doodling wolves. 1968, Robert Conquest, “The Purge Begins”, in The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 74
   1. 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. (music) A wolf tone or wolf note.
   The soft violin solo was marred by persistent wolves.
4. (figurative) 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.
8. (obsolete) An eating ulcer or sore. See lupus.
9. A willying machine, to cleanse wool or willow.
   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 teeth 1872, Johann Rudolph von Wagner, A handbook of Chemical Technology

verb

1. (transitive) To devour; to gobble; to eat (something) voraciously.
   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
   Vicars seated himself and began wolfing a sandwich. 2013, Neil Martin, Collected Stories of the Sea
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 or two, I been around.’ 1949, Nelson Algren, The Man with the Golden Arm
3. (intransitive) To hunt for wolves.