hobbit

plural hobbits · humorous plural hobbitses

1. fantasyA member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.First known use 20th c.

   It was his thirty-third birthday and already he had […] a little round tummy like a hobbit

   2008, Tom Holt, Falling Sideways, Orbit books,, →ISBN, page 3

   Synonyms: halfling

   1. humorousfantasyA person of short stature.

      Synonyms: halfling

2. 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.First known use 21st c.

   The hobbit became extinct 50,000 years ago, about the time the first humans arrived on Flores, but the Pacific rat lived on.

   2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 270

   3 more examples

   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.

   2007 September 20, Christopher Joyce, “Case Grows for ‘Hobbit’ as Human Ancestor”, All Things Considered, National Public Radio

   And in the island regions of southeast Asia, where the descendants of erectus, and the Hobbit, and any similar relict populations lived, climate changes would have greatly disrupted connections between regions and populations, as sea levels rose and fell by 100 metres or more.

   2011, Chris Stringer, The Origin of Our Species, Penguin, published 2012, page 215

   The discovery of the Hobbit skeleton in Liang Bua cave in 2003 was an instant sensation. But what it said about human evolution was less clear. Discoverer Mike Morwood proposed that it was a shrunken Homo erectus, the same species that eventually evolved to become us; others suggested the Hobbits were descended from smaller, more primitive early humans such as Homo habilis or Australopithecus.

   2016 June 9, James Griffiths, “This is how the ‘Hobbits’ of Indonesia became so small”, in CNN, archived from the original on 11 Apr 2021

3. USslanguncommonA socially unappealing, overly academic student.

plural hobbits

1. A Welsh unit of weight, equal to four Welsh pecks, or 168 pounds.
2. archaicAn old unit of volume (2+¹⁄₂ bushels, the volume of 168 pounds of wheat).