English Explanatory Dictionary

hobbit

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.
  2. A person of short stature.
  3. An extinct species of hominin, Homo floresiensis, with a short body and relatively small brain, fossils of which have been recovered from the Indonesian island of Flores.
  4. A socially unappealing, overly academic student.
noun
  1. A Welsh unit of weight, equal to four Welsh pecks, or 168 pounds.
  2. An old unit of volume (2+¹⁄₂ bushels, the volume of 168 pounds of wheat).

Pronunciation

/ˈhɒbɪt/ [-ɪʔ] LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hobbit.wav

Word forms

hobbit hobbits hobbitses

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.

Synonyms

halfling

Related words

halfling

Derived words

dwobbit fobbit hobbitic hobbitish hobbitlike hobbitness hobbitry hobbity

Translations

Arabic: هُوبِيت Bengali: হবিট Breton: hobbit Bulgarian: хо́бит Catalan: hòbbit Chinese Mandarin: 霍比特人 Chinese Mandarin: 哈比人 Czech: hobit Czech: půlčík Danish: hobbit Dutch: hobbit Esperanto: hobito Faroese: hobbi Finnish: hobitti French: hobbit Georgian: ჰობიტი German: Hobbit Greek: χόμπιτ Ancient Greek: ὅββιτος Hebrew: הוֹבִּיט Hungarian: hobbit Icelandic: hobbiti Irish: hobad Italian: hobbit Japanese: ホビット Korean: 호빗 Latin: hobbitus Marathi: हॉबिट Norwegian Bokmål: hobbit Norwegian Nynorsk: hobbit Polish: hobbit Polish: hobbitka Portuguese: hobbit Russian: хо́ббит Scots: hobbit Scottish Gaelic: hobat Serbo-Croatian: hobit Slovak: hobbit Upper Sorbian: hobit Spanish: hobbit Swedish: hobbit Swedish: hob Swedish: homp Tajik: хоббит Tajik: ҳоббит Thai: ฮอบบิท
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