gray wolf
4
3.0
- noun
- /ɡreɪ wʊlf/
- US
:
lobo gris
- I literally live with a pack of recently reintroduced gray wolves in my backyard!
- gray wolf population
- gray wolf recovery
- delist the gray wolf
Examples
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They're gray wolves.
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That's how gray wolves call for their family.
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Do you know how big a gray wolf gets?
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That is just a common gray wolf.
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As moose are on the move, so are gray wolves.
Academic text (2012) -
On a ramp above him and to the right, a shaggy gray wolf stood looking at him.
Fiction book (1991) -
Two wolves from the Washington state gray wolf pack were killed for preying on cattle.
Blog text (16) -
And with the loss of free range, the cowboy disappears, along with the mountain lion and gray wolf.
Fiction book (1992) -
Wolf Recovery gives students the opportunity to research and debate the reintroduction of gray wolves into Adirondack Park in upstate New York.
Academic text (2003) -
I spotted a gray wolf walking through the snowy forest at dawn.
Synonyms
493
1.0
A large wild dog that usually hunts in packs
1
4.7
A large wild wolf that lives in North American forests and has grey fur
1
6.8
A large wild dog called the gray wolf that lives in forests in North America, Eurasia, and North Africa
Surface Forms
Morphology
This is a simple adjectival modification: 'gray' describes the color of the noun 'wolf', so the phrase denotes a wolf that is gray (and by extension the familiar species). The meaning is directly derivable from the constituent words and follows a common cross-linguistic adjective+noun pattern, making it immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Gray wolf is a simple, literal name: people put gray and wolf together to picture a wolf with a grey coat and the animal itself. So the name means 'a large wild wolf with a gray coat'.