[f. the name of the German philologist F. A. Wolf (1759–1824) + -IAN.] a. adj. Of or pertaining to F. A. Wolf or his theory regarding the Homeric poems (developed in his Prolegomena ad Homerum, 1795). b. sb. One who accepts this theory.
1875. W. D. Geddes, in Contemp. Rev., July 234. The Wolfian theory … that the Homeric poems were a congeries of originally independent lays, gathered together and moulded into a unity in the time of Pisistratus (about B.C. 560). Ibid., 235. Next to him [sc. G. Hermann] in importance among the later Wolfians … stands Lachmann.
