Definition of "wolf"

wolf

/wʊlf/

noun
plural wolves
1. Canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily.
  Quotations
  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, 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.
4. (figurative) Any very ravenous, rapacious, or destructive person or thing; especially, want; starvation.
  Quotations
  “ […] Churchill, my dear fellow, we have such greedy sharks, and wolves in lamb's clothing. Oh, dear, there's so much to tell you, so many warnings to give you, but all that must be postponed for the moment.”
  1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, page 85
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.
  Quotations
  If God should send a cancer upon thy face, or a wolf into thy side
  1651, Jer[emy] Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Francis Ashe […]
9. A willying machine, to cleanse wool or willow.
  Quotations
  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
third-person singular simple present wolfs, present participle wolfing, simple past and past participle wolfed
1. (transitive) To devour; to gobble; to eat (something) voraciously.
  Quotations
  "Here's these legal ferrets has got our Puddin' in their clutches, and here's us, spellbound with anguish, watchin' them wolfin' it."
  1918, Norman Lindsay, The Magic Pudding, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 150
  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.
  Quotations
  ‘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.