hobgoblin
"hobgoblin" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hobgoblin” is uncommon English (frequency #65,964 among 23,837 “H” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #65,964
- frequency rank, English
- 23,837
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A small, ugly goblin that makes trouble for humans.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hobgoblin |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #65,964 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hobgoblin” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
hobgoblin is uncommon English at frequency #65,964 among 23,837 “H” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for hobgoblin in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From hob (“elf”, from Hob, a variant of Rob, short for Robin Goodfellow, an elf in Germanic folklore) + goblin. The correct English form is hobgoblin, spelled H-O-B-G-O-B-L-I-N.
Definition
- 1A small, ugly goblin that makes trouble for humans.
- 2A source of dread, fear or apprehension; a bugbear.
Etymology
From hob (“elf”, from Hob, a variant of Rob, short for Robin Goodfellow, an elf in Germanic folklore) + goblin.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “hobgoblin”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-O-B-G-O-B-L-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.