Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Wolfish   Listen
adjective
Wolfish  adj.  Like a wolf; having the qualities or form of a wolf; as, a wolfish visage; wolfish designs.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Wolfish" Quotes from Famous Books



... tell of aught save wrong on wrong, Wrought by our mother's deed? Though now she fawn for pardon, sternly strong Standeth our wrath, and will nor hear nor heed; Her children's soul is wolfish, born from hers, And softens ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus

... know about that," said Rob, laughing. "Look over yonder." He pointed to where an Indian woman sat on the ground, cleaning a lot of fish. Around her squatted a circle of gaunt, wolfish creatures which seemed ready to devour her ...
— Young Alaskans in the Far North • Emerson Hough

... doubt, a new manifestation is at hand, a new hour in the day of Man. We cannot expect to see any one sample of completed being, when the mass of men still lie engaged in the sod, or use the freedom of their limbs only with wolfish energy. The tree cannot come to flower till its root be free from the cankering worm, and its whole growth open to air and light. While any one is base, none can be entirely free and noble. Yet something new shall presently be shown of the life of man, for ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... displayed such anxiety to increase the distance between himself and his tribe. Never since that long-lashed, short-handled, heavy whip was made, had it given forth such a rapid series of pistol-like reports, and never since they were pups had those ten lanky wolfish dogs stretched out their long legs and scampered over the Arctic sea as they did on that occasion. The old ice was still sufficiently firm and smooth to afford a good road, and the new ice was fortunately strong enough to bear, for the pace was tremendous. With "the world before him where to choose," ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne

... the night and the north, Freighters on prairies and plains, Carrying cargoes from field and flood They scent the trail through their wild red blood, The wolfish blood in ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson

... develop in ourselves a moral tidiness, and an aversion to all the manifestations of the brute principle in man, such as the wolfish, degrading hatred for people of other races. The hatred of the Jew is a beastlike, brute phenomenon; we must combat it in the interests of the quicker growth of social sentiments ...
— The Shield • Various

... bodies of wolves, in which they dwell and are carried about for the prescribed space of time. Some of those who have stated that they came long distances after escaping from the chains of their wolfish imprisonment, being questioned how they got out of that confinement, and why they returned, and how they could cross such wide and deep rivers, gave answer that the imprisoning forms no longer confined them, that they felt coerced to come out of them, and passed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... the dead horses, till Hazel's nerves were strained to the snapping point. Continually she was reminded of that vivid episode, of which she had been the unwitting cause. Sometimes she would open the door, and from out the dark would arise the sound of wolfish quarrels over the feast, disembodied snappings and snarlings. Or when the low-swimming moon shed a misty glimmer on the open she would peer through a thawed place on the window-pane, and see gray shapes ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... home, foreseeing the final collapse in Virginia, assured that the sea is lost to the South, the colonel's mood is daily sadder. His hungry eyes are wolfish in their steady glare. Only a soldier now. His flag is his ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... never be repeated in later years for another object. How little she had known herself or life! How little she had known the cruel forces of mature age. That passion of her girlhood seemed to her like an anaemic shadow of the wolfish truth that was alive in her now. In those days the power to feel, the power to crave, to shudder with jealousy, to go almost mad in the face of a menacing imagination, was not full-grown. Now it was full-grown, and it was a giant. Yet in those days she had allowed the shadow ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... animals was the same. A horde of mange-corroded curs lived off his bounty, wolfish, ungrateful, often marking him with their teeth, yet never knowing the meaning of a harsh word. A burro, over-fed, lazy, incorrigible, browsed on the hill back of the Mission, obstinately refusing to be harnessed to Sarria's little cart, squealing and biting whenever the attempt was made; and the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris

... slightly, and the arms that had been about to encircle the girl, fell slowly to his sides. Patty had suddenly drawn herself erect and looked him eye for eye: and as she looked, from behind the soft glow of the velvet eyes, leaped a wolfish gleam—a glint of baffled rage, a flash of hate. In a moment it was gone and ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx

... for an instant Finnegan hesitated, glaring at his captors with wolfish eyes. Roosevelt walked toward him, covering the center of the man's chest to avoid ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... the sledge, she clung to Peter, and suddenly the inspiration came to her not to let him know what had happened. Her arms tightened about his shoulders, and she looked ahead over the backs of the wolfish pack, shivering as she thought of what Uppy would do could he guess her loss. But he was running now for his life, driven on by his fear of her unerring marksmanship—and Wapi. She looked over her shoulder. Wapi was ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... on this occasion was the sickly young student—more pale and haggard than ever, and halfway nearer the grave since his first sermon. He still set himself to frighten the sheep into the fold by wolfish cries; but it must be allowed that, in this sermon at least, his representations of the miseries of the lost were not by any means so gross as those usually favoured by preachers of his kind. His imagination was sensitive enough to be roused by the words of Scripture themselves, ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... entrance. This was debatable ground. I looked round the corner with one cautious eye, and even as I did so, a shadow rushed along the ground.... Instantly I snapped off my rifle from my hip, the others followed suit, and a howl of canine rage answered us. We had rolled over a wolfish dog searching for dead bodies. Before we had time to realise much, the savage animal was up again and rushing at us—to escape through the gate. As it passed, we clubbed and bayonetted him with neatness, for we have now some art in ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... new blankets was opened, as it appeared to me, for my especial benefit. The chief, his lady, two sons almost grown, two or three wolfish looking dogs which forcibly reminded me of Field's terrible scare, and myself made up the number of lodgers in that mansion that night. Late that night some warriors who had been out on a campaign ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... bodily strength and mental daring; square as a gladiator, dark as a Moor, with deep and fiery eyes, now black, now red in the lamplight, the marvellous smile wreathing his thin lips now and then, and showing white, wolfish teeth, his sinewy brown hands direct in every little action, his soft voice the very music of a lie to those who knew the terrible brief tones ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... of my native land! loftiest Muse! O first-born on the mountains! by the hues Of heaven on the spiritual air begot: Long didst thou sit alone in northern grot, While yet our England was a wolfish den; Before our forests heard the talk of men; Before the first of Druids was a child;— Long didst thou sit amid our regions wild Rapt in a deep prophetic solitude. There came an eastern voice of solemn ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... his Indian Journal gives two remarkable instances of language and unity of work among animals which he saw at Ranee Bennore, while he was on a hunting trip. He witnessed, one morning, a striking case of wolfish generalship, which in his belief proved that animals are endowed to a certain extent not only with reason but are able to communicate their ideas to others. He was scanning the horizon one morning to see if any game was in sight when he discovered a small ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... paint and girls who rode loose-haired and panting with hand held over the heart, hurrying for doctors, and cowboys and parsons and such. She had seen many a man whip pistol from holster and dare a mob with lips drawn back in a wolfish grin over his white, even teeth, and kidnappings were the inevitable ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... Hanky's occasional frankness put people off their guard. He was the mere common, superficial, perfunctory Professor, who, being a Professor, would of course profess, but would not lie more than was in the bond; he was log-rolled and log-rolling, but still, in a robust wolfish fashion, human. ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... among the snow-mantled bushes and heavily laden trees a hundred and fifty eyes glared in the brooding darkness—as though all the wolves in the forest were gathering there. Later, when the sound of heavy breathing was heard round the fires, a fierce, wolfish-looking dog, bolder than the rest, left its snowy bed to hunt for more sheltered quarters. There was a whine, a snarl, then the sound of clashing teeth. In a moment every dog leaped up with bristling hair. Instantly bedlam reigned. Over ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... ruin on the table and came bleeding to the window, his grin a rictus of wrath, his green teeth wolfish with anger. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... of the battle about, stood looking down at Zaidos. His bloodshot eyes were narrowed to slits, his lips drawn back in a wolfish snarl. In his hand was a revolver. He leaned forward a little. He spoke, but in the din Zaidos could not hear his words. He could read the twisting ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... finished, the party resumed their station under the shadow of the tree, intending to watch for a while, and see how the wolfish intruders would act. ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... The very instant it struck, the bloodthirsty monster fell dead. When John reached the spot, there was scarcely the quiver of a limb, so well had the work of death been accomplished. Yet the wolfish face grinned still a ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage

... doctor came in. His first act was to turn on the electric light. In a flash the rustling shadow was converted into substance. Cuckoo and the doctor stood face to face, and Cuckoo's tired eyes fastened with a hungry, almost a wolfish, scrutiny upon this stranger. She wanted so much of him. The look was so full of intense meaning that, coming in a flash with the electric flash, it startled the doctor. Yet he had seen something ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... that window stood a mirror, set at an angle, and suddenly Lanyard caught its presentment of himself—a gaunt and hungry apparition, with a wolfish air he had never worn when rejoicing in his sobriquet, staring with eyes ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance

... have been hundreds of them, all bright new British sovereigns. Indeed, so taken up were we that we had forgotten all about their owner until a groan took our thoughts back to him. His lips were bluer than ever, and his jaw had dropped. I can see his open mouth now, with its row of white wolfish teeth. ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and there were other things he knew, and some he believed, might not take his hasty visit pleasantly. There was the horseshoe-fish with ugly strings hanging from his base, disagreeable arachnides, strange star fish and their parasites, and, curiously, a large wolfish fish that had built a nest and was watching it and him—watching him with no agreeable or timid expression in its angry eyes. He was just expecting Victor Hugo's devil fish to complete his horror when a sudden, sharp, bone-breaking shock struck him ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various

... sidewalk, past the warehouse doors and the long teams of waiting huskies curled up in wolfish comfort in the snow. It was for this snow, the first permanent one of the fall, that the miners up-creek had waited to begin ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London

... of haggard, wolfish men glared through the underwood, silent and watchful save that they burst into a fierce yelp of welcome when Chandos and Nigel galloped up, sprang from their horses and took their station beneath them. All along the green fringe of bowmen might be seen the steel-clad figures ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... passed. In the darkness of the third night out they crossed the river themselves, and side-stepping the village and its wolfish dogs struck south once more. They had to dodge night-roving Indians, as before, but they traveled steadily; there was no sign, by any of the Indians they met, that the island had been taken. This gave ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... moving object within the range of his vision, and not with any purpose of his own. In fact, it is doubtful if, at first, the animal's movements conveyed any meaning to the watching man. The moments slipped away and the dog snuffed inquiringly at the various curious objects its wolfish eyes beheld. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... hard and wolfish as de Yankees. They say de Yankees was close behind them and they just as well take things as to leave all for de Yankees. 'Spect dat was true, for de Yankees come nex' day and took de rest of de hog meat, flour, and cows. Had us to run down and ketch de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... stones, thar's hell no other whar all about Salt River! But I say, sodger, I came here not to talk nor cavort[11], but to show that I'm the man, Ralph Stackpole, to die dog for them that pats me. So, whar's anngelliferous madam? Let me see her, sodger, that I may feel wolfish when I jumps among the redskins; for I'm all for a fight, and thar ar'n't no run ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... not the velvety glow of newness. There was a growing bald spot, scarcely hidden by the Hyperion Polish curls; there were crows'-feet around the bold, insolent eyes, and the man's smile was lean and wolfish when the glittering white teeth flashed through the professional smirk of the traveling artist. The old, easy assurance was still there, but cognac had dulled the fires of genius; the tones of the violin trembled, even under the weakening but still magic fingers, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... when he came into the room. Usually the curio dealer had a smile and a suave, pleasant manner, but on this occasion all his suavity was gone, and his eyes, usually so inexpressive and secret, were lighted with a strange, wolfish look of anger and rage that was almost ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... lips to answer, but there was something in his face—something at once so cruel and deadly and wolfish—that made the words die on her lips. For the first time it came to her that if he did not take her with him he would kill her to insure his own safety. None of the arguments that would have availed with another man were of any weight here. Her sex, her youth, the service she had done him—these ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... there refit. Besides, we badly needed recuperation after the more than ordinary hardships we had undergone. We arrived at the Lower Camp one morning at about nine o'clock, more than half-starved. I shall never forget my wolfish sensations as we flung down our swags at Stopforth and Bowman's eating-house and called for breakfast. I then enjoyed the heartiest meal of my life, after which I sat back pulling at my pipe and noting with astonishment the amount of food which ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... wilderness! . . . There's never been a white woman in Katleean. It would be great sport to see one up against it here, eh, Kayak?" The White Chief turned, smiling, and the light in his pale, narrow eyes matched the wolfish gleam ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby

... turning once more to the jury], think of the colossal, wolfish nerve that would permit a man to say to Albert Stires that he had just purchased sixty thousand dollars' worth additional of city loan, and that he would then and there take the check for it! Had he actually purchased this city loan as he said he ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... could hold and scurried away to the firing line once more, and, heedless of whistling bullets, darted from man to man until the bread was exhausted. Not a one but gave me a "God bless you, Davy," ere he seized it with a great hand and began to eat in wolfish bites, his Deckard always on the watch ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... had not been unaware of Latimer's gaze; he had noted the wolfish gleam in the other's eyes—and because he was interested in Latimer, he watched ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... counted the leagues of barren ocean that still stretched before. With haggard, wolfish eyes they gazed on each other, till a whisper passed from man to man, that one, by his death, might ransom all the rest. The choice was made. It fell on La Chere, the same wretched man whom Albert had doomed to starvation on a lonely island, and whose mind was burdened with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... shadow of another night Hath darkened Pisa, many a foe shall stray Through Nino's home, with eyes malignly bright In wolfish quest, but shall not find his prey: The while those lovers in their white-winged flight Shall see far out upon the twilight grey, Behind, the glimmer of the sea, before, The dusky ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman

... the dreary monotony of the premises. Dark patches of lava, all littered with the heads and entrails of fish; a pile of turf from some neighboring bog; a rickety shed in which the fish are hung up to dry; a gang of wolfish-looking curs, horribly lean and voracious; a few prowling cats, and possibly a chicken deeply depressed in spirits—these are the most prominent objects visible in the vicinity. Sloth and filth ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... or wolfish, my boy. But go on. It certainly is a delicious fish, and Dolly has cooked it to a turn. They were ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... complete. The quondam protégé of these chiefs was too ill, too much upset, to speak. I bade him good night, and returned home, half-admiring The Giant and his troop, and abusing the foolish parsimony of the merchant, who ought to have thrown a few lumps of flesh to these hungry and wolfish sons of The Desert, and satisfied them at once. One of the party was Hateetah's brother; and Hateetah told me next day that he himself ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... rest, the wolfish race Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face: Never was so deform'd a beast of grace. His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears, Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears, And pricks up ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson

... housekeeper was a very singular looking young woman for her position. Her hair was conspicuously dark at the roots and conspicuously light on the ends. Her face was hard and when she smiled her mouth, assumed a wolfish expression. She was loudly dressed and wore a profusion of jewelry—altogether a most remarkable looking woman ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... brooding contemplation and curiosity, as 'That man I don't like, and have the grudge against; would such be his appearance, if some one—not to mention names—by any chance gave him an knock?' There was a wolfish stare at the object, in which homicidal white-lead worker shone conspicuous. And there was a much more general, purposeless, vacant staring at it—like looking at waxwork, without a catalogue, and not knowing what ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... two weeks in a flivver here on Broadway early in the spring. Dead broke, hungry, and about ready to make good for some manager." As the answer was fired point-blank at him, Mr. Dennis Farraday seemed to see a fire of psychic hunger blaze as high as that of wolfish, physical ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess

... a farm-house with never a light to show upon its front, there was a ferocious hullabaloo, something between the angry snorting of a buffalo and the puffing of a railroad engine going up a steep grade. It was the wolfish welcome of three canine brigands, the bloodthirsty watch-dogs that surrounded and guarded this lonely and poverty-stricken little farm-house from the approach of any one ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes

... but two nights since, as I was coming home something later than my wont from Terentia's, that I fell in with Clodius reeling along, frantically drunk and furious, with half a dozen torch-bearers before, and half a score wolfish looking gladiators all armed with blade and buckler, and all half-drunk, behind him. I do assure you that I almost swore I would go out ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... war—the force of multitude, the charge of the masses; and she will conquer, until the kings of Europe follow her example, and call their nations to the field. Till then she will be invincible, but then her conquests will vanish; and the world, exhausted by carnage, will be quiet for a while. But the wolfish spirit of human nature will again hunger for prey; some new system of havoc will be discovered by some great genius, who ought to be cursed to the lowest depths of human memory; but who will be exalted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various

... rain-proof. Scores of graceful birch canoes, such as the northern tribes excel in making, were drawn up on the river bank; paddles and spears leaned against the lodges, smoke-blackened kettles and other rude cooking-utensils were scattered about the smouldering fires, and a throng of wolfish-looking dogs added their discordant baying to the clamor ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... with my hands, Had I but some one who would back them off And cast them from me that I might be clean— For washing would not cleanse them, even if I dipped them in thy blood. Away! Away! So stood'st thou not to deal the deadly blow, Thy wolfish eyes fixed on him steadily, With fiendish grin disclosing thy intent Before the time! But slyly didst thou creep Behind him, ever shrinking from his gaze, As wild beasts do that fear the human eye, And peered to find the spot, that I—Thou dog, What ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... the Jews with reference to this wolfish shepherd may easily be imagined. Nothing but fear of Antiochus held them in check. Then a report gained currency that the king had perished in an expedition against Egypt (170); and Jason, who meanwhile had found refuge in Ammanitis, availed himself of the prevailing current of feeling to resume ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... What was the use? I was conscious that the Vidame from the top of the stairs leading to the grand entrance was watching us with a wolfish glare in his eyes. I went quietly. But I heard Croisette ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... made a sound. With an oath he turned on his heel and went out to the table. Eating his breakfast in his usual wolfish fashion, he went out into the hot sun with his team and ridding plow, not a little disturbed by this new phase of his wife's "cantankerousness." He plowed steadily and sullenly all the forenoon, in the terrific heat ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... Professor E. A. Ross has recently stated in The American Journal of Sociology that although restriction 'results in diffusion of economic well-being; lessens infant mortality; ceases population pressure, which is the principal cause of war, mass poverty, wolfish competition and class conflict,' yet there are 'disquieting effects, and in one-child or two-child families both parents and children miss many of the best lessons of life; the type to be standardised is not the family of one to three but the ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... the omission. The result was a "championship" of a very superior order. Being somewhat modest, he committed it through the trap-door to the mercy of the wind, and for a time it was lost in the straggling rubbish which tailed away to the north. Even the prowling dogs in their wolfish hunger could not overcome a certain prejudice. Of course some one found it, and the public hailed it with delight. A searching inquiry was made, but the perpetrator was never discovered. That loaf, however, like the proverbial bad penny, turned up ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... the fire and with deadly effect. Two of the warriors fell, and the rest leaped back, still shouting their war cry, which was taken up and repeated in volume at a hundred points. Far above the forest it swelled, a terrible wolfish cry, fiercest of all on its dying note. From river and deep woods came the echo, and the warriors in multitudes rushed ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... sky, her eyelids sunk with it, and very soon she was fast asleep, with her head on the book, and her cheeks flushed almost to a vermilion hue. From that brief summer dream she was aroused by some sudden noise, and starting up, she saw the sheep bounding far away, while a large, gaunt, wolfish, grey dog snuffed ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... will attack him. The ground, however, was now completely covered with snow, and I knew that they would find but little food. As I could not venture out, most of the day passed away in a half-unconscious dreamy state; part of it I slept. The next night I was awoke soon after dark by the wolfish chorus; it was much nearer than before. The sounds formed themselves into words to my disordered senses. "We'll eat you up; we'll eat you up ere long," they appeared to say. A third night came. The pack seemed increased in numbers, as if they had been collecting from every quarter. I fancied ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston

... from thy shore: The Bear, the Boar, and every savage name, Wild in effect, though in appearance tame, Lay waste thy woods, destroy thy blissful bower, And, muzzled though they seem, the mutes devour. More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race 160 Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face: Never was so deform'd a beast of grace. His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears, Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears, And pricks up his predestinating ears. His wild disorder'd walk, his haggard ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... own good time had joined in the attack. Rome the Mighty, the Eternal, invincible as Fate, whose power no man believed could have an end, was brought to bay at last, impotent, drained by internal sores, goaded and tortured by foes without, with a horde of wolfish barbarians snarling and snapping at her throat. From one distant province after another her legions were called home. The fated twelve centuries of her power were ended; the direst ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... faculties; it accorded itself with the sacred laws of supply and demand, it was the basis of the progress and prosperity wherewith America had been blessed. And here suddenly Hal found himself face to face with the reality of it; he saw its wolfish eyes glaring into his own, he felt its smoking hot breath in his face, he saw its gleaming fangs and claw-like fingers, dripping with the blood of men and women and children. Private Ownership of coal-mines! Private Ownership of sealed-up entrances ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... woods and streams, Val d'Arno, Val di Tevere, the hills of Perugia, the valleys of Umbria, the lean, wolfish country of the Marche, the rugged mountains of Romagna. There, on the summit of La Verna, you look down on the broken fortresses of countless wars, the passes through which army after army, company upon company, has marched ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... touches, grand sweeps of outline, that show a master's hand. Sometimes,—to-night, for instance,—the curtain is accidentally drawn back, and I see a bare arm stretched out imploringly in the darkness, and an eager, wolfish face watching mine: a wan, woful face, through which the spirit of the dead korl-cutter looks out, with its thwarted life, its mighty hunger, its unfinished work. Its pale, vague lips seem to tremble with a terrible question. "Is this ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis

... the rascal's audacity, but took care to keep my eyes fixed abstractedly upon the ceiling, and drank my wine in as unconscious a manner as possible. I felt that Flannigan was looking towards me with his wolfish eyes to see if I had noticed the allusion. He whispered something to his companion which I failed to catch. It was a caution, I suppose, for the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... There was a wolfish grin on his face. "There's gold there, too. Not much, really, compared with what we'll get later on, but enough to ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... finger off in their endeavours to secure a ring. The ambulance clatters up at a canter, the poor rider is pushed in out of sight, and the ladies in the stand say how unlucky they are—that brute of a horse falling after they backed him. A wolfish-eyed man in the Leger-stand shouts to a wolfish-eyed pal, "Bill, I believe that jock was killed when the chestnut fell," and Bill replies, "Yes, damn him, I had five bob on him." And the rider, gasping like a crushed chicken, is carried into the casualty-room and ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... jewels to white neck, to laughing, sensuous face, to jewels again or to lithe, young form, scantily clad and swaying in masculine arm in rhythm with the waltz. It gave Arkwright a qualm of something very like terror to note the contrast between his passive figure and his roving eyes with their wolfish gleam—like Blucher, when he looked out over London and said: "God! What ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... brings his wolfish pack About my legs, as, dripping from the sea, I pick my way thro' shingle and wet wrack ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various

... assent, and certainly they all, including the Frenchmen, looked wolfish enough. Max and Dale had a little food with them, and this they promptly brought out and handed round. It provided about two mouthfuls for each of the band, but was accepted and ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill

... miles we galloped like the wind, and my brave little traveller overtook the hindmost of the troop, and retained the position. Thrice there were discharges ahead; I caught glimpses of the Major, the Captain, and the wolfish sergeant, far in the advance; and once saw, through the cloud of dust that beset them, the pursued and their individual pursuers, turning the top of a hill. But for the most part, I saw nothing; I felt ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend

... me, but I thanked him, and drawing out my slender purse, gave him a piece of silver. He fastened on it with wolfish eagerness and the next instant had disappeared, leaving me to find La Boule ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... strangers paused to admire their pretty home, and these fair, beautiful children. But sin once more entered their little Paradise. William Way again relapsed into dissipation, and 'the state of that man was worse than before.' The fire died out upon the hearth stone, and want, with gaunt, wolfish face, met them wherever they turned. And he, who should have protected, gave them only blows and curses. Everything went for drink. Angel tried courageously to find employment, but her slender wages were rudely taken from her, and half the time they went cold ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock

... the upturned faces below him, Mr. Tapster was very glad that a stout pane of glass stood between himself and the sinister-looking men and women who seemed to be staring up at him, or rather at his windows, with faces full of cruel, wolfish curiosity. He let the blind fall to gently. His interest in the vulgar, sordid scene had suddenly died down; the drama was now over; in a moment the crowd would disperse, the human vermin (but Mr. Tapster would never have used, even to himself, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... Brousa, and the Governor at first decided to send us back. Taking Francois, however, for a Turk, and finding that we had regularly passed quarantine, he signed them after a delay of an hour and a half, and we left the shore, weary, impatient, and wolfish with twelve hours' fasting. A cup of Brousan beer and a piece of bread brought us into a better mood, and I, who began to feel sick from the rolling of the caique, lay down on my bed, which was spread at the bottom, and found a kind of uneasy sleep. The ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... dog; he may sleep in your stable, exercise himself in the coachyard, and may stand or run behind your carriage, but he must not enter the house, for he is offensive, nor eat at your table, for the way he devours his food is wolfish; you unchain him, and that is all. But before the collar was unfastened he was well and regularly fed, now he has to forage for it; and if he can't pay for his grub, he can and will steal it. Abolition has done great things for him. He was once ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... horseman ran a tall dog, wolfish in head and wolfish in the gait which carried it like a cloud shadow over the ground, but it was over-large for any wolf Vic had ever seen. It turned its head now, and leaped aside at sight of the stranger, but the rider veered from his course and swept down on Vic. He came to a halt close ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... the learned page; (So be it called) although he doth expound Without a book, both Greek and Latin sage; Now telleth he of Rome's rude infant age, How Romulus was bred in savage wood, By wet-nurse wolf, devoid of wolfish rage; And laid foundation-stone of walls of mud, But watered it, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... or two, petrified with horror, we stood staring at it. The evil smile flickered for a moment, baring the white teeth and lighting the depths of those wolfish eyes; then, with a fiendish laugh, ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the men, ready to spring out upon them, when there came a terrific interruption. There was a sudden crash in the brush behind him, a menacing snarl, and a huge wolfish brute launched itself at his throat. The swift instinct of self-preservation turned the weapon intended for the men over the fire upon this unexpected assailant. The snarling fangs of the husky were gleaming in his face and the animal's body ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood

... serpent heart, hid with a flowery face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather'd raven! wolfish ravening ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... the trail in silence for about six miles. They then saw, not far from them, upon a meadow on the banks of a small stream, a very picturesque group of wigwams, with all the accompaniments of loafing warriors, busy women, sporting children, and wolfish dogs, usually to be found in an Indian village. At the distance of about a mile and a half, upon a gentle eminence, there was another ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott

... set out to see the town. They climbed up street to the cathedral, a fine old pile trembling with music and filled with worshippers, paintings of saints in extremis, flowers, wax candles, votary offerings, and heat; then coming out, and feeling wolfish, looked round for a place where they could find dinner! Here it was! a scene that would have cheered Teniers: a very large room, its walls brown with smoke; long wooden tables, destitute of cloth, but crowded with country people eating, drinking, talking, enjoying themselves ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the rocks which he has torn from among the moss of the moor-land, and heaves into the darkened air the pile of iron buttress and rugged wall, instinct with work of an imagination as wild and wayward as the northern sea; creations of ungainly shape and rigid limb, but full of wolfish life; fierce as the winds that beat, and changeful as the clouds ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous

... camp was pitched in the shelter of the forest. The dogs fed voraciously and well on their raw fish, for the journey was short and provisions plentiful. The two men fared in their usual plain way. They slept in their fur-lined bags while the wolfish burden-bearers of the North first prowled, argued out their private quarrels, sang in chorus as the northern lights moved fantastically in the sky, and finally curled themselves in their ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum

... pursuing his vision splendid. And here is that pure-white martyr girl, painted by Millais, staked down in the sea midst the rising tide, but looking toward the open sky, with a great, sweet light upon her face. Here is Luther surrounded by scowling soldiers and hungry, wolfish priests, looking upward and then flinging out his challenge, "I cannot and I will not recant, God help me." Here is John Brown, with body all pierced with bullets and grievously sore, stooping to kiss the child as he went on to the gallows, with heart ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis

... thought I. He was undoubtedly well aware of the feelings of horror and repulsion that he inspired in the breasts of others, and seemed rather to pride himself upon it, I thought; for as I was led forward into his presence he paused in his wolfish feeding and glared upon me with an expression of concentrated malignity that seemed to freeze the very marrow in my bones. But I believed that he was deliberately striving to frighten me, and horrified though I actually ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... its nose against the invalid's head. There was something rarely savage and yet beautifully soft in the dog's face, scarred as it was by the whips of earlier owners. The sick man's hand went up and caressed the wolfish head. "Good dog, good Akim!" he said softly in French. "Thou dost know when a storm is on the way; thou dost know, too, when there is a storm in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the nomination, put it in an envelope, addressed it to the secretary of the Bellingham Home, licked the flap of the envelope with wolfish ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... his young friend, did not intend to spoil his chances in after life by an indelible bodily mark of this kind however honourably attained. He had other designs for him. To pass the next year or two, he made arrangements for Giustino, now grown lean and wolfish, to be officially received into the Black Hand. As probationer he was the delight of his superiors; he went through the various tests with phenomenal rapidity and gave abundant proofs of manliness. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... physiological fact. There are old fables about patients who have barked like dogs or crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded by those animals. There is nothing impossible in the idea that Romulus and Remus may have imbibed wolfish traits of character from the wet nurse the legend assigned them, but the legend is not sound history, and the supposition is nothing more than a speculative fancy. Still, there is a limbo of curious evidence bearing on the subject of ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... far-off West, where, over and over again, he had heard these sounds, and his faithful Winchester repeater had stood him in good service. Again the yelping—this time nearer. Yes! it was undoubtedly a wolf; and yet there was an intonation in that yelping not altogether wolfish—something Mr. Anderson had never heard before, and which he was consequently at a loss to define. Again it rang out—much nearer this time—much more trying to the nerves, and the cold sweat of fear burst out all over him. Again—close ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... stopped, his eyes glistened with amazement, then his face assumed wolfish fierceness, when at a distance from him opposite the door, through which the princess Alexandra had just entered, he observed the figure, dressed in court uniform, of Kuno of Lichtenstein, the very man by whom Zbyszko had nearly lost his life ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... to change it. That is human nature, and I am merely regretting, not condemning it. Perhaps if the Republicans come back into power after four years, they will not be quite so hungry as the Democrats were after sixteen years of famine, and we may have a little less wolfish desire ...
— Ethics in Service • William Howard Taft

... anger reddens are blinded by it; but those who turn pale never stop thinking. Meantime, Red Jim looked at Hervey and looked at the cowpunchers behind Hervey. It was not hard to see that in a pinch they would be solid behind their foreman. They watched him with a wolfish eagerness. Why they should be so instantly hostile he could not guess but he was enough of a traveller to be prepared for strange customs in strange places. There was only one important point: he would not saddle the buckskin. Moreover, at sight of their solid front ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand

... ascends the morning, The bustle, of the fields declines, The wolf walks now upon the highway, In wolfish hunger howls and whines; The traveller's pony scents him, snorting— The heedful wanderer breathless takes His way in haste beyond the mountains! And though no longer when day breaks Forth from their stalls the herd begins To drive the kine,—his noon-day horn recalls. The peasant ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... circle round the pair, Ursus harangued and Homo approved. Homo, with a bowl in his mouth, politely made a collection among the audience. They gained their livelihood. The wolf was lettered, likewise the man. The wolf had been trained by the man, or had trained himself unassisted, to divers wolfish arts, which swelled the receipts. "Above all things, do not degenerate into a man," his friend would ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... Vittoria strove to become, and from which he alone was striving to rescue her. He used abundant illustrations, coarse and quaint, and was half hysterical; flashing a white fist and thumping the long projection of his knee with a wolfish aspect. His grotesque sincerity was little short of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... I saw the men marched out to labor, and was amazed to see their famished, wolfish looks—thin, gaunt and almost disguised out of all human resemblance by their ill-fitting, mud-covered garments and mud-splashed faces and hands. I myself was kept in, but the weary, almost ghastly spectre march ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... to suffer, at intervals, for two days more, but on the fifth day out he appeared with a little pink tinge on his cheek and a wolfish appetite. Dr. Staines controlled his diet severely, as to quality, and, when they had been at sea just eleven days, the physician's heavy heart was not a little lightened by the marvellous change in him. The unthinking, who believe in the ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... uproar. And, standing on a huge car drawn by white horses, the slayer of Madhu and the son of Pandu blew their celestial trumpets. Krishna blew his horn called Panchajanya; the Despiser of Wealth blew his horn called the Gift of the Gods; he of dreadful deeds and wolfish entrails blew a great trumpet called Paundra; King Yudishthira, the son of Kunti, blew the Eternal Victory; Nakula and Sahadeva blew the Sweet-toned and the Blooming-with-Jewels. The king of Kashi, renowned for the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... almost like an echo, the sound of the shutting gate, and, sudden as an apparition, the form of an immense dog loomed in the doorway. I was now near enough to see the savage aspect of the animal, and the gathering motion of his body, as he prepared to bound forward upon me. His wolfish growl was really fearful. At the instant when he was about to spring, a light hand was laid upon his shaggy neck, ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... I could not, when he trusted me, betray him. I said nothing, but I was there at the hour. He entered through the window, and implored me to give him the money. He was terribly changed; gaunt, wolfish, and spoke like a madman. I told him that I had spent the money. He gnashed his teeth at me, and swore it was his money. I told him that I had spent it on him. He asked me how. I said in trying to make him an honest man, and in repairing the results of his villainy. He shrieked out ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... power, are well known to breed answering vices in those who are powerless and suffering. What more direct plan than the course presented by European history could have been pursued in order to give the Jews a spirit of bitter isolation, of scorn for the wolfish hypocrisy that made victims of them, of triumph in prospering at the expense of the blunderers who stoned them away from the open paths of industry?—or, on the other hand, to encourage in the less defiant a lying conformity, a pretence of conversion for the sake of the social advantages ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... Sainct-Germain en Laye, le 6^e jour de novembre 1557. Vostre meilleur voysin et amy, Cardinal de Lorraine." This was pretty fair dissembling even for the smooth tongue of the arch-persecutor of the Huguenots. It must be confessed, however, that the sheep's clothing never seemed to fit him well; the wolfish foot or the bloodthirsty jaws had an irresistible propensity to show themselves. The letter of the cantons, the king's reply, and Lorraine's letter, from the MSS. in the archives of Basle, are printed in the Bulletin de la Societe de l'hist. du prot. ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... the table had drawn back his lips so that the canine teeth stood out like tusks. There was something wolfish about the face, from which all the color had been driven. It expressed something so deadly, so menacing, that the young man across from him felt a shock almost of fear. "We'd better get out of here," he said, glancing toward the group near ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... better sooner than later. But tell me again: was she fierce and rough in words with thee? for what she said to thee thou hast not yet told me. Said Birdalone: In her first fury, when she was like to have slain me, she had no words, nought but wolfish cries. But thereafter she spake unto me strangely, yet neither fiercely nor roughly; nay, it seemed to me as if almost she loved me. And more than almost she besought me rather than commanded me not to flee from her. And wert thou beguiled by her soft speech? said Habundia. ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... proposal to kill all their children, so that they should not be hampered in their flight; of their life in the woods, like wild beasts, and the ignoble ferocity of their ends. Scarcely less sombre reading is the account of how they were hunted down, and of the wolfish eagerness the borderers showed to massacre the women and children as well ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... back street out of the Old Square. Putting her burden down at the pavement's edge, she blew a whistle. A hansom-cab appeared, and a man in ragged clothes, who seemed to spring out of the pavement, took hold of her valise. His lean, unshaven face was full of wolfish misery. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... pause, In spite of teeth and claws, Left nothing of the Lynx to tell the story; The Leopard all irate At his relation's fate, Made mince meat of that wolfish monster hoary. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... 2 classes—those ez hed bin recently appinted to posishens, and them ez expected to be shortly. I notist on the countenances uv the first class a look uv releef, sich ez I hev seen in factories Saturday nite, after the hands wuz paid off for a hard week's work; and on the other class the most wolfish, hungry, fierce expression I hev ever witnessed. Likewise, I notist that the latter set uv patriots talked more hefty uv the necessity uv sustainin the policy uv our firm and noble President, and damned the Ablishunists with more emphasis and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various

... gold. He foretold his doom. Yes! yes! it was his destiny, and it has been fulfilled. His bones will bleach in the wilderness, and the spirit-hunter and his wolfish daughter are avenged." ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... pirate's cutlas. And as the schooner's crew roared at Hanglip's heels, storming over to the pitching sloop's decks to pursue mercilessly the panic-stricken runaways, the girl pitted agility and splendid knife-craft against the terror-driven strength and wolfish fury ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle

... evidence, while the manager moved quickly to his side, to inspect the find. And P. Sybarite looked up with blank eyes in a pallid, wizened face in time to see Shaynon bare his teeth—his lips curling back in a manner peculiarly wolfish and irritating—and snarl ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... such explanation as is equivalent to a translation from a foreign language, and the more general one is the palm lowered as if to stroke gently in a line conforming to the animal's head and neck. It is abbreviated by simply lowering the hand to the usual height of the wolfish aboriginal breed, and suggests the animal par excellence domesticated by the ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... case Mother Mawks should persecute her. "Is that you, Jim? Come upstairs; it's better than talking out there." He obeyed, and stood before her in the wretched room, looking curiously both at her and the baby. A wiry, wolfish-faced being was Jim Duds, as he was familiarly called, though his own name was the aristocratic and singularly inappropriate one of James Douglas. He was more like an animal than a human creature, with his ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... alternately the prey of duke, prelate, and seignor, shorn and butchered like sheep, esteem it happiness to sell themselves into slavery, or to huddle beneath the castle walls of some little potentate, for the sake of his wolfish protection. Here they build hovels, which they surround from time to time with palisades and muddy entrenchments; and here, in these squalid abodes of ignorance and misery, the genius of Liberty, conducted by the spirit of Commerce, descends ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... in the land and defiant. Down the frozen waterway toiled a string of wolfish dogs. Their bristly fur was rimed with frost. Their breath froze in the air as it left their mouths, spouting forth in spumes of vapour that settled upon the hair of their bodies and formed into crystals of frost. Leather harness was on the dogs, and leather traces attached them to ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... seller's appeal to the buyer must, however, have accompanied the earliest development of trade. Under conditions of primitive barter, communities were so small that every producer was in immediate personal contact with every consumer. As the primeval man's wolfish antipathy to the stranger of another pack gradually diminished, and as intercourse spread the infection of larger desires, the trapper could no longer satisfy his more complicated wants by the mere exchange of his pelts for his lowland neighbour's corn and oil. A began to accept ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... "I was wolfish for a moment, I suppose. Things had gone wrong generally. But if you are going to scold me, Margaret, I would ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich



Words linked to "Wolfish" :   ravening, rapacious, gluttonous, voracious, wolf, edacious, wolflike



Copyright © 2024 Diccionario ingles.com