Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
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noun
A fictional small humanoid creature featuring in fantasy fiction; a hobbit.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: fantasy
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A fictional humanoid born of a human parent and a parent of another race in fantasy fiction.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Topics: fantasy
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
A half-grown person, between a child and an adult.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
History
From half + -ling. Sense 3 ("half-grown young person") is attested to 1794. It was then used by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings (1954) as an alternative reference to members of his hobbit race. Hobbits were used in the original 1974 releases of the role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, but in later editions they were changed to "halflings" for legal reasons, as being a pre-existing word rather than one invented by Tolkien.
Across languages
31 source translations are retained for this English entry.
