Goblin

How to spell goblin

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce goblin

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does goblin mean?

1. nounA small, grotesque, mischievous or malicious creature of folklore and fantasy.

Goblin in a sentence

• The children dressed as a witch and a goblin for the costume party.

• The fantasy novel describes a goblin guarding a hoard of stolen gold.

Where does goblin come from?

Language of origin: French

Goblin came into English in the 1300s from the Old French gobelin, a name for a mischievous or malicious household spirit. That word in turn goes back to the Medieval Latin gobelinus, recorded around the year 1100 in the writings of a Norman cleric who described a troublesome spirit haunting the area near Evreux. Beyond that point the trail grows uncertain, and scholars have offered competing parents: one popular suggestion links it to the Greek kobalos, meaning a rogue or impudent knave (and also a mischievous goblin-like sprite), while another connects it to the Germanic Kobold, the cobalt-mine spirit of German folklore. Either way the meaning has stayed remarkably stable, always describing a small, ugly, grotesque creature given to mischief or outright malice. The single 'b' and the unstressed 'lin' ending are the quiet traps, since the word looks as though it might double a consonant but does not.

How the word is built

• goblin (a single root word; no separable prefix or suffix, though it likely traces to a diminutive form of an older name)