Other forms: elves
An elf is a slender magical being of woods and northern legend. Elves and dwarves, an elf king, in elvish.
The plural is elves and the adjective elvish or elfin. The word covers two quite different pictures. In Norse and older English folklore, elves were powerful and dangerous, and Tolkien's tall grave elves are a deliberate return to that. In Victorian and modern popular use they became small and cheerful, which gives Santa's elves and the elf on a shelf. Note elfin, meaning small and delicately pointed, usually of a face.
1nounelfA slender magical being of woods and northern legend.
“An elf appears on about every third page of that book.”
elf is a magical being.
Old English ielf goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning white or shining, which is why elves are pale in the oldest stories. The word survives in the names Alfred, elf-counsel, and Alvin.
Middle English
elf
English, today
elf
From Middle English elf. From Middle English elf, from Old English ielf, ælf, from Proto-West Germanic albi, from Proto-Germanic albiz. Ultimately probably derived from Proto-Indo-European h₂elbʰós (“white”). a doublet of alf and awf and oaf. The modern fantasy literature sense was popularised by the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA