hobbit

Definition

A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.

Etymology

Coined in its current sense by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s, featured in the novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Jocularly etymologized by him as from a hypothetical Old English *holbytla (literally “hole-builder”), from hol (“hole”) + bytlan (“to build”) + -a (“-er”). Tolkien was possibly influenced by similar terms for house-sprites (probably from Hob, a hypocoristic form of Robert), or an isolated mention of hobbits (with hobgoblins following immediately afterwards) in a list of sprites and bogies from the 19th-century Denham Tracts.

Example Sentences

• "It was his thirty-third birthday and already he had […] a little round tummy like a hobbit"
• "Although partial remains of other Hobbits have surfaced at the same site, they say it could have been an isolated colony of inbred people who shared the same genetic abnormalities."
• "And in the island regions of southeast Asia, where the descendants of erectus, and the Hobbit, and any similar relict populations lived, climate changes would have greatly disrupted connections between regions and populations, as sea levels rose and fell by 100 metres or more."

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