# gremlin

> English word · Noun · IPA /ˈɡɹɛmlɪn/ · frequency rank #45,408

## Definitions
1. A contemptible person.
2. An imaginary creature reputed to be mischievously inclined, for example, to damage or dismantle machinery.
3. Any mysterious, unknown source of mischief or trouble, or the problem created thereby.
4. A young, inexperienced surfer or skateboarder, regarded as a nuisance.
5. A person regarded as similar to a fictional gremlin, in particular: mischievous, troublesome, short, or annoying.

## Etymology
Uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested:
* A variant of goblin.
* From Irish gruaimín (“gloomy little person”); or from Dutch gremmelen (“to soil, stain; to spoil”), or griemelen, grimmelen (“(obsolete) to abound, teem; to swarm”), but according to the Oxford English Dictionary there is little evidence for such derivations.
The word was popularized, especially in the United States, by the children’s novel The Gremlins (1943) by the British author Roald Dahl (1916–1990), in which gremlins sabotage Royal Air Force aircraft in revenge for the destruction of their forest home to make way for an aircraft factory; the creatures later join forces with the British to fight the Nazis.

## Common misspellings (11)
`germlin`, `ggremlin`, `grelmin`, `gremiln`, `gremlinn`, `gremllin`, `gremlni`, `gremmlin`, `grmelin`, `grremlin`, `rgemlin`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/gremlin