| 释义 |
wolfish, a.|ˈwʊlfɪʃ|
Also 8 woolf-.
[f. wolf n. + -ish1. Cf. MHG. wolfisch, and wolvish.]
1. a. Of or pertaining to a wolf or wolves.
1570Levins Manip. 146/8 Wolfish, lupinus. 1687Dryden Hind. & P. i. 160 The wolfish race, Appear with belly Gaunt, and famish'd face. 1690C. Nesse O. & N. Test. I. 213 Ye may beat a wolf..yet all this will not drive away his wolfish nature. 1868Cornh. Mag. July 70 The bristles that ornamented him in his wolfish state. 1890Temple Bar Nov. 355 So vigorously had the wolfish tribe been hunted down that only one couple survived.
b. Abounding in wolves. nonce-use.
1747Collins Ode Liberty 72 Where Orcas howls, his wolfish mountains rounding.
2. a. Characteristic of, befitting, or resembling that of, a wolf.
1674Govt. Tongue viii. 146 All the wolfish designs walk under this sheeps clothing. 1750Lardner Wks. (1838) III. 79 His..unsociable and wolfish disposition. 1842Dickens Amer. Notes vi, Grope your way with me into this wolfish den. 1848Lytton Harold vii. v, The eyes of the three men, with a fierce and wolfish glare.
b. In sense 8 b of wolf n. rare.
1889Grove's Dict. Mus. IV. 89/1 Bad Tenors [sc. tenor violins] are worse than bad violins; they are unequal and ‘wolfish’.
3. a. Resembling a wolf, wolf-like.
1775Adair Amer. Indians 259 To keep the [Indian] wolf from our own doors, by engaging him with his wolfish neighbours. 1854J. S. C. Abbott Napoleon (1855) II. xiv. 242 Swarms of Cossacks, on fleet and wolfish horses.
b. Ravenously hungry. U.S. colloq.
[1842Fraser's Mag. Dec. 652/2 My appetite was growing decidedly wolfish.] 1848Bartlett Dict. Amer., Wolfish, savage, savagely hungry. 1894Fenn In Alpine Valley II. 133 I'm wolfish.
4. Comb., as wolfish-faced, wolfish-looking, wolfish-visaged adjs.
c1779Crabbe Midnight 295 Avarice..A Woolfish-Visag'd Fiend. 1820Scott Ivanhoe I. i. 14 A rugged wolfish-looking dog..half mastiff, half greyhound. 1851Mayne Reid Scalp Hunters xxvii, [The animal] is wolfish-looking. 1894B. M. Croker Village Tales (1896) 162 The wolfish-faced crowd had melted away.
Hence ˈwolfishly adv.; ˈwolfishness.
1676Marvell Mr. Smirke 66 The Wolfishness of those which..ought to have been the Christian Pastors, but went on scattering their Flocks, if not devouring. 1831J. Wilson in Blackw. Mag. XXIX. 703 The Red Rover yowls wolfishly to the moon. 1842Borrow Bible in Spain xl, Wolfishly eager for booty. 1890J. Pulsford Loyalty to Christ I. 205 Compare..the consummate wolfishness of Christian Europe with the simpler wolfishness of heathen nations. |