hobbit

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 (“hole-builder”). 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.

hobbit (plural hobbits or (humorous) hobbitses)

1. A fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.
   • 2008, Tom Holt, Falling Sideways, Orbit books, →ISBN, p. 3:

     It was his thirty-third birthday and already he had […] a little round tummy like a hobbit

2. 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.
   • 2007 September 20, Christopher Joyce, “Case Grows for ‘Hobbit’ as Human Ancestor”, All Things Considered, National Public Radio:

     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.

   • 2011, Chris Stringer, The Origin of Our Species, Penguin 2012, p. 215:

     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.

• hobbitic
• hobbitish
• hobbitlike
• hobbitry
• hobbity

• halfling

Probably from hoppet, hobbet (“basket”).

hobbit (plural hobbits)

1. A Welsh unit of weight, equal to four Welsh pecks, or 168 pounds
2. (archaic) An old unit of volume (2½ bushels, the volume of 168 pounds of wheat).

Coined by J.R.R. Tolkien

hobbit m (definite singular hobbiten, indefinite plural hobbiter, definite plural hobbitene)

1. a hobbit

Coined by J.R.R. Tolkien

hobbit m (definite singular hobbiten, indefinite plural hobbitar, definite plural hobbitane)

1. a hobbit

hobbit m, f (plural hobbits)

1. hobbit (fictional small humanoid creature)

hobbit m (plural hobbits)

1. hobbit

• hobbit on the Spanish Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^es