the.com/gray wolf

means The large wild canid (Canis lupus) native across much of the Northern Hemisphere, and the species from which all domestic dogs descend.

from "Wolf" traces back through Old English "wulf" to a very old Proto-Germanic root "*wulfaz," itself descended from an ancient Proto-Indo-European word reconstructed as "*wĺ̥kwos." That root ran so deep that its descendants show up across the whole Indo-European family — related forms sit behind Latin "lupus" and Greek "lykos" — making "wolf" one of the oldest animal names still prowling the language. "Gray" is just the plain Old English color word "grǣg," tacked on to separate this wide-ranging species from other wolves like the red wolf.