Elf

How to spell elf

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce elf

What does elf mean?

1. nounA small, magical being of folklore, often pictured with pointed ears.

Elf in a sentence

• The children left out a mince pie for the elf on the shelf.

• In the novel, every elf lives deep within the ancient forest.

Where does elf come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends directly from Old English ælf, a native Germanic term for a supernatural being, and it has close cousins across the Germanic family, including Old Norse alfr and Old High German alp. The original ælf was not the cheerful figure of modern stories but a powerful and often dangerous spirit blamed for illness, bad dreams, and mischief; the lingering nightmare sense even survives in the German word Alp. Over the medieval period the elf shrank in popular imagination from a feared spirit to a small, magical woodland creature. The familiar friendly versions, the toy-making helpers of folklore and the tall, noble figures of later fantasy fiction, are modern reinventions of this very old idea. The spelling stays pleasingly simple, but note that the plural takes the older Germanic form 'elves', with the f softening to v.

How the word is built

• elf (a single root noun from Old English ælf; no prefix or suffix)