wolf dog

plural wolf dogs · alternative wolfdog · alternative wolf-dog

1. A dog trained to hunt wolves.

   Bayan was a dog, a tall gray wolf-dog. He could jump over the table with a single bound.

   1916, Arthur Ransome, “The Hut in the Forest”, in Old Peter's Russian Tales

   2 more examples

   One grisly old wolf-dog alone, with the liberty of an indulged favourite, had planted himself close by the chair of state, and occasionally ventured to solicit notice by putting his large hairy head upon his master’s knee, or pushing his nose into his hand.

   1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter III, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC

   The wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his long black tongue lolling out.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 2]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC

2. A hybrid between a wolf and a dog.

   That night the starved wolf dogs gorged themselves till they could not rise from the snow.

   1908, Zane Grey, chapter 9, in The Last of the Plainsmen

   1 more example

   At the man’s heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolf-dog, grey-coated and without any visible or temperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf.

   1908, Jack London, “To Build a Fire”, in Lost Face