Loper

name, noun

name, noun ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    One who or that which lopes; a runner; a leaper.

    "Wolves are very intelligent animals, and they are lopers and they are survivors."

  2. 2
    A wolf, especially a grey or timber wolf. Southwestern, US, dialectal

    "When I was still some distance above the ford, about a dozen prairie wolves and one loper* wolf ran up from the water. They told me that there were no Indians near here or they would not be here; and they were not here long, either. [...] the big loper left on a slow gallop [...] Loper, corruption of Sp. lobo, wolf."

  3. 3
    A swivel placed at one end of the ropewalk, with the whirl being at the opposite end.
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Synonyms

All synonyms

Example

More examples

"Wolves are very intelligent animals, and they are lopers and they are survivors."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From lope (“to leap, to run”) + -er.

Etymology 2

From American Spanish lobo (“wolf”) (/ˈloβo/), reinterpreted as or conflated with loper (“one who lopes”); compare the alternative forms which reflect other re-interpretations and conflations.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.