hobbit
/ˈhɒbɪt/noun
hobbit is spelled H-O-B-B-I-T: 6 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 2.5 times per million words in written English, the 17,342nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, hobbit means “A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of hobbit is hobbits; Wiktionary also lists hobbitses (humorous).
How many letters and syllables are in hobbit?
| Letters | 6: H-O-B-B-I-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 2.5 times per million words; the 17,342nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is hobbit?
Hobbit appears 2.5 times per million words in written English, the 17,342nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hobbit?
- /ˈhɒbɪt/
- [-ɪʔ]
Hobbit has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-hobbit.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hobbit
- hobbits plural
- hobbitses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hobbit mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
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.
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.
- 4
USslangA socially unappealing, overly academic student.
- 5
A Welsh unit of weight, equal to four Welsh pecks, or 168 pounds.
- 6
archaicAn old unit of volume (2+¹⁄₂ bushels, the volume of 168 pounds of wheat).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hobbit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hobbit come from?
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.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).