hobbitry n.

the culture or behaviour of hobbits; hobbits collectively, or their qualities

SF Criticism

1944 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter 6 May in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981) 78 page image J. R. R. Tolkien
Well, there you are: a hobbit amongst the Urukhai. Keep up your hobbitry in heart, and think that all stories feel like that when you are in them.
1947 C. S. Lewis On Stories in Essays Presented to Charles Williams 104 page image C. S. Lewis bibliography
The Hobbit escapes the danger of degenerating into mere plot and excitement by a very curious shift of tone. As the humour and homeliness of the early chapters, the sheer ‘Hobbitry’, dies away we pass insensibly into the world of epic.
1954 J. R. R. Tolkien Letter 9 Sept. in H. Carpenter Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1991) 184 page image J. R. R. Tolkien
There is too much ‘hobbitry’ in Vol. I taken by itself; and several critics have obviously not got far beyond Chapter I.
1966 New Statesman 11 Nov. 701/2
The newest and richest site of hobbitry is the American campus, where students are said to greet each other with hobbitish salutations such as ‘May your beard never grow less’.
1991 PC Plus Mar. 169/2 page image
Why is that designers habitually fall back on Hobbitry and the like to provide settings for their games…. Serious gamers may well be put off by the triviality of all the Middle Earth trappings.
2018 C. P. Olson A Cloud of Witnesses in Mythlore (vol. 37, iss. 133) (Fall 2018–Winter 2019) 126
The companions soon afterward lapse into familiar hobbitry with Farmer Maggot, who advises them to go home and stay home.

Research requirements

antedating 1944

Earliest cite

J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter

Research History

Mark English submitted a cite from a 1944 letter by J.R.R. Tolkien, collected in the 1981 "Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien".

Earliest cite in the OED: 1947.

Last modified 2024-06-28 14:44:09
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.