Illustration of gray wolf
gray wolf
noun
: a large, broad-headed, wide-muzzled wolf (Canis lupus) that has a dense, heavy coat of usually light brown or brownish gray interspersed with black above and yellowish white below and that was formerly widely distributed throughout North America and Eurasia but is now greatly restricted to the more northerly parts of its range
The only sizable gray wolf population south of Canada and Alaska continues to roam the forest-and-lake country of northern Minnesota.—
Vic Banks
Vic BanksNote: The gray wolf has been considered a threat to livestock and people for hundreds of years and has been wiped out from most of its original range by hunting, trapping, and poisoning.
called also timber wolf
Examples of gray wolf in a Sentence
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Colossal’s dire wolf work took a less invasive approach, isolating cells not from a tissue sample of a donor gray wolf, but from its blood.
—Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 7 Apr. 2025
As for the decision to bring back a predator known to be 20 percent larger than a gray wolf — the largest living canine — Lamm says dire wolves aren’t anything for humans to feel nervous about, in a personal, life-and-limb sense.
—Andrea Marks, Rolling Stone, 7 Apr. 2025
That agency said in a press release that a collar on a male gray wolf alerted the animal's death on Sunday in the same region of Wyoming.
—CBS News, 21 Mar. 2025
Studying Wolves In Minnesota The Voyageurs Wolf Project is a research initiative that studies gray wolf packs around Voyageurs National Park.
—Amanda Kooser, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2025
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Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 7 Apr. 2025
As for the decision to bring back a predator known to be 20 percent larger than a gray wolf — the largest living canine — Lamm says dire wolves aren’t anything for humans to feel nervous about, in a personal, life-and-limb sense.
—Andrea Marks, Rolling Stone, 7 Apr. 2025
That agency said in a press release that a collar on a male gray wolf alerted the animal's death on Sunday in the same region of Wyoming.
—CBS News, 21 Mar. 2025
Studying Wolves In Minnesota The Voyageurs Wolf Project is a research initiative that studies gray wolf packs around Voyageurs National Park.
—Amanda Kooser, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for gray wolf
Cite this Entry
“Gray wolf.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gray%20wolf. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025.
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