hobbit
Noun
- an imaginary being similar to a person but smaller and with hairy feet; invented by J.R.R. Tolkien
- A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.
- A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.
- A person of short stature.
- 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.
- A socially unappealing, overly academic student.
- A Welsh unit of weight, equal to four Welsh pecks, or 168 pounds.
- An old unit of volume (2+¹⁄₂ bushels, the volume of 168 pounds of wheat).
- pl. -S a fictitious creature that lives underground
Origin / 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
Scrabble Score: 13
hobbit: valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordhobbit: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
hobbit: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary
Words With Friends Score: 14
hobbit is a valid Words With Friends word