[f. WOLF sb.]
1. trans. To eat like a wolf; to devour ravenously.
1852. Sala, Seven Sons, III. xi. 272. [She] used to … wolf her food with her fingers.
1880. Spurgeon, Ploughm. Pict., 105. Hungry dogs will wolf down any quantity of meat.
1903. Speaker, 24 Jan., 419/1. The men … wolfing up meals of oyster stew in an atmosphere of perpetual dyspepsia.
2. intr. with it: To behave like a wolf; = WOLVE v. 1.
1865. W. G. Palgrave, Arabia, I. 126. While ’Obeyd was wolfing it in Kaseem.
3. trans. To delude with false alarms: cf. prec. 9 a.
1910. Contemp. Rev., Jan., 55. Those whose interest it was to wolf the credulous public out of their pence.
1917. ‘Contact,’ Airman’s Outings, 4. The dwellers in the blinking hole, having been wolfed several times, are sceptical.
