Wolve

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An archaic spelling for the plural of the wild canine animal known as the wolf, now replaced by the modern form
2. Refers to more than one wild canine predator, an older variant of the standard plural form used for packs of wolves
3. A rare historical spelling denoting multiple members of the wolf species, seen mainly in older English texts

Etymology: "Wolve" is the plural of "wolf," formed from the stem that appears when the word takes a plural ending. In Old English the plural of "wulf" was "wulfas," but its stem vowel and consonant shifted in a way that left "wolves" with a sound that drifted away from the singular over the centuries. The spelling "wolve" survives mainly as an older or variant form of that plural, the kind of shape a reader might meet in older texts or dialect writing.