WOLFISH

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wolfish mean? 

• WOLFISH (adjective)
  The adjective WOLFISH has 2 senses:

1. resembling or characteristic (or considered characteristic) of a wolf

2. devouring or craving food in great quantities

  Familiarity information: WOLFISH used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WOLFISH (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Resembling or characteristic (or considered characteristic) of a wolf

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

wolfish; wolflike

Context example:

wolfish rapacity

Pertainym:

wolf (any of various predatory carnivorous canine mammals of North America and Eurasia that usually hunt in packs)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Devouring or craving food in great quantities

Synonyms:

edacious; esurient; rapacious; ravening; ravenous; voracious; wolfish

Context example:

voracious sharks

Similar:

gluttonous (given to excess in consumption of especially food or drink)

 Context examples 

Not alone with their own eyes did they see the wolfish creature in the clear light of day, standing before them.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He had never seen dogs fight as these wolfish creatures fought, and his first experience taught him an unforgetable lesson.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

He heard the wolfish snarling and yelping of strange dogs and the sound of voices.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

He controlled himself with an effort, but not before the wolfish expression of his face had awed and perturbed them.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

My eyes had been upon the face of my uncle as he listened, but now as I turned them from him they fell once more upon the thin, wolfish face of Sir Lothian Hume.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language!—no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word—the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But the gods had given him a different environment, and he was moulded into a dog that was rather wolfish, but that was a dog and not a wolf.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

And all the while the silent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Martin shook his head, but he had failed to keep back the wolfish, hungry look that leapt into his eyes at the suggestion of dinner.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Riding along on the train, near to the line between California and Oregon, he chanced to look out of the window and saw his unsociable guest sliding along the wagon road, brown and wolfish, tired yet tireless, dust-covered and soiled with two hundred miles of travel.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)