Dictionary

sell wolf tickets en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

From wolf ticket/woof ticket, from woofing (“idly boasting”), from woofing (“(emptily/harmlessly) barking like a dog”). Woof ticket/wolf ticket is attested since the 1960s.

Meanings

1. (qualifier:African-American Vernacular) To make threats or boasts, especially if empty and/or if made to intimidate someone.
   • A lot of selling of wolf tickets but never any blood. I wish they would kill one of themselves so there would be some peace around here. 2010, Theodore Dallas Ashford, A Lone Pine Traveler, →ISBN, page 145:
   • Dock has never fired a gun at anyone. He may possibly have sold a reporter a handful of wolf tickets. 2010, Donald Hall, Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball, →ISBN, page 164:
   • I stood there in silence listening to Ollie build himself up by selling wolf tickets about what he planned to do to me. 2007, Stanley Tookie Williams, Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir, page 59:
   • It's plenty people selling wolf tickets, you know. 1974, Vernon E. Smith, The Jones Men, page 165, quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang (2008)
   • The two of them played about four hands of spades, each of which was close but as usual, Yvonne won. Of course, she had to sell wolf tickets after the win. "The next time you come over Mchael, I'll let you win." "Let me win?" he asked incredulously. 2009, Crystal Y. Dixon, Destiny's Time, →ISBN, page 43:

Forms

Coordinates

buy wolf tickets