halfling
English
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
halfling
- /ˈhæflɪŋ/ US
- /ˈhɑːflɪŋ/
Where it comes from
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.
noun halflings
- A fictional small humanoid creature featuring in fantasy fiction; a hobbit.
- A fictional humanoid born of a human parent and a parent of another race in fantasy fiction.
- A half-grown person, between a child and an adult. Often it had been my fate to accompany the pick of the knight errantry of Whinnyliggate on such quests—for, though Nance was about my own age, she had become a reigning belle while I was but a halfling boy.
Translations
Talk about this word "halfling." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/halfling. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. halfling. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/halfling "halfling." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/halfling.Cite this
@misc{halfling_2026,
title = {halfling},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/halfling},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
