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Glite Dictionary
wolf boy

wolf boy

9.9
A boy believed to have been raised by wolves who behaves like a wild animal
  • noun
  • Literature
translation icon : chico lobo
  • The villagers were afraid when they first encountered the wolf boy near the forest.

Examples

  • Legends from India often mention a mysterious wolf boy living in the jungle.

  • The story of the wolf boy fascinated researchers and the public alike.

  • The wolf boy ran swiftly.

  • Is that a wolf boy?

  • The story of the wolf boy fascinated researchers and the public alike.

  • Legends from India often mention a mysterious wolf boy living in the jungle.

  • The villagers were afraid when they first encountered the wolf boy near the forest.

How Wild

wolf boy
  • Literature
9.9
unsupervised
21 4.2
sheltered
1 3.2
civilized
29 4.3

Surface Forms

wolf boy singular
wolf boys plural

Morphology

wolf + boy

The meaning 'a boy believed to have been raised by wolves' is directly derivable from combining 'wolf' (a wild canid) and 'boy' (a male child), so the relation is literal and compositional. This noun–noun compound follows common cross‑linguistic patterns (feral/animal-raised child) and would be understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.

Etymology

Wolf boy comes from old stories about a wolf and a boy living together. Imagine a boy running and howling with a pack of wolves. So the name means 'raised by wolves' and acting very wild.