Hobbit（n.）
1937年，这个字眼最早出现在 J.R.R. 托尔金（1892-1973）的小说中。
On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' I did not and do not know why. [Tolkien, letter to W.H. Auden, dated 1955]
“我在一张白纸上匆匆写下了这样一句话：‘在地洞里住着一个霍比特人。’我当时不曾明白也不明白现在，为什么要这样写。” 【特尔金于1955年写给 W.H. 奥登的信】
这个单词还在 Michael Aislabie Denham（1859年去世）的著作中出现，他是早期的民俗学家，专注于英格兰北部、苏格兰和马恩岛的民俗。这段文字被收入发行于1895年的卷二《Denham Tracts》[编辑 James Hardy, 伦敦：民俗学会]中。
What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks necks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins Gyre-carling, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!
“70至80年以前，在这个所有其他节日都黯然失色的节日的前夜出生，对于那些幸运的几个人来说，这将会是多么的幸福啊！整个地球都充满了鬼魂、精灵、妖怪、恶魔、萤火虫、小丑、尸鬼、煤匠、黑狗、幽灵、暴君、瑟瑟发抖的骗子、女巫、巫师、狼人、鬼怪、头脑简单的人、妖精、亡灵、可怕的狼、各种各样可怖的东西，包括梦魇、妖怪、灰怪、妖婆、半夜袭击的恶鬼、刺鼻的吓人的味道、幽鬼、幻像、小叮当、魔咒、好奇宝宝、奇怪的小玩意、胶囊、小丑、小天使、黑暗中的鬼怪、幻灵、小恶魔、在树洞里的神秘人、在坟墓中的鬼、骨狼、鬼火、死亡魔车、丑八怪、回回人、煤匠、小天使、山灵、小精灵、海妖、美瑟斯、鬼、糖果怪、身世不明的孩子、长脖子怪、红帽怪物、维京鬼、小红怪、科比特妇人、折磨人、白衣女鬼、摇肩女鬼、沉默的女人、魔鬼、后来者、巫婆、甚至形状各异的幻象。几乎每个村庄都有自己特殊的幽灵。确实，每个具有任何古老历史的孤独住所、城堡或宅第都有鬼怪，幽魂或敲门器。所有的教堂、墓地、十字路口都鬼魅乱舞。每一条小路都有一块大石头，上面有一个幽灵在夜里放哨。每个公共场所都有属于它的仙女圈。而且在英格兰几乎找不到牧羊人不曾看见鬼魂的。”
[强调部分由本文编辑] 这个单词在民俗传说中并没有其他的出现，因此没有证据表明托尔金曾见过这个单词。这个词汇也出现在1835年记录的“Hob”中，“Hob”指的是由四个威尔士碗所组成的一个量。【Hughes vs. Humphreys, 一起重量和度量案的英国法院记录】1947年开始出现 Hobbitry。
该词起源时间：1937年