The story
- German · semantic loan fromVielfraß
- Latin · derived fromgluttō, gluttōnis“glutton”
- Old French · derived fromgloton
- Middle English · inherited fromglotoun
- English todayglutton
From Middle English glotoun, from Old French gloton, gluton, from Latin gluttō, gluttōnis (“glutton”). The use for the wolverine is a semantic loan from German Vielfraß, itself a folk etymology for Old Norse *fjallfress (literally “mountain cat”). The popular belief that the wolverine is particularly voracious only developed because of this name. See the German for more.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.