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

Note: 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

Illustration of gray wolf

Examples of gray wolf in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In addition, Project 2025 proposes weakened protections for endangered species, including delisting the gray wolf and grizzly bear. —Suzanne Rowan Kelleher, Forbes.com, 15 July 2025

The company’s project involved recovering DNA of the extinct dire wolf from a fossil tooth found in Idaho and an ear bone in Ohio, parts of the animal’s primordial habitat, but the key was its editing of a donor genome of the gray wolf to alter 14 of its genes. —Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 24 Apr. 2025

The state is beginning a process of re-evaluating protections for the gray wolf, triggered by the species’ success in re-establishing itself here. —Sacbee.com, 1 Aug. 2025

As an example, the team at Colossal uses the genetics of the used the genetics of the closet relative of the team successfully used comparative genetics with its closest living relatives, the gray wolf, to fill in critical gaps in the genetic sequence. —Nish Acharya, Forbes.com, 25 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1595, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for gray wolf

• werewolf
• beowulf

Kids Definition

gray wolf

noun

: a large wolf of northern regions that is usually gray

called also timber wolf