The word is an abbreviated form of loup de guerre - also attested in Anglo-Norman (see sub guerre). The term is used as a name for one of the largest medieval trebuchets ever built, and is also attested in Latin (lupus belli in the Flores Historiarum or lupus guerrae in contemporary account rolls, cf. DMLBS lupus 2 1662b), and English (war-wolf in seventeenth-century chronicles, cf. OED sub war wolf n.).