Other forms: goblins
A goblin is a small malicious creature of folklore. A cave goblin, goblins in the mine, hunted by goblins.
In European folklore goblins are household or mine spirits, mischievous rather than deadly, and modern fantasy has made them a green-skinned enemy in numbers. Tolkien used goblin and orc for the same creatures. Note hobgoblin, which is milder; goblin mode, which was a word of the year in 2022 and means behaving with deliberate unkempt self-indulgence; and that goblin, kobold and cobalt are the same word.
1noungoblinA small malicious creature of folklore.
“In the fairy tale, a goblin stole the baby and left a stone in its cradle.”
goblin is a creature of folklore.
Medieval Latin cobalus comes from Greek kobalos, a rogue or mischievous spirit. German miners blamed a kobold for ore that gave off poisonous fumes and yielded no copper, and named the metal cobalt after it — so a goblin is in the periodic table.
Proto-Germanic
*pūkô — a goblin, spook
Ancient Greek
κόβαλος — rogue, knave; goblin
Latin
cobalus — mountain sprite
Old Dutch
*kobeholdo — goblin
fro-nor
gobelin
Middle English
gobelyn
English, today
goblin
From Middle English gobelyn, from fro-nor gobelin (compare Norman goubelin, wa gobelin), possibly a blend of Old Dutch kobeholdo (“goblin”) (compare Dutch kabouter, German Kobold) and Latin cobalus (“mountain sprite”), from Ancient Greek κόβαλος (“rogue, knave; goblin”). Displaced native pūca from Proto-Germanic pūkô (“a goblin, spook”), whence English puck.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA