hobbit

noun

1. A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.

   “It was his thirty-third birthday and already he had […] a little round tummy like a hobbit”

2. (humorous)A member of a fictional race of small humanoids with shaggy hair and hairy feet.
3. An extinct species of hominin, Homo floresiensis, with a short body and relatively small brain, fossils of which have been recovered from the Indonesian island of Flores.

   “Although partial remains of other Hobbits have surfaced at the same site, they say it could have been an isolated colony of inbred people who shared the same genetic abnormalities.”

   “And in the island regions of southeast Asia, where the descendants of erectus, and the Hobbit, and any similar relict populations lived, climate changes would have greatly disrupted connections between regions and populations, as sea levels rose and fell by 100 metres or more.”

   “The discovery of the Hobbit skeleton in Liang Bua cave in 2003 was an instant sensation. But what it said about human evolution was less clear. Discoverer Mike Morwood proposed that it was a shrunken Homo erectus, the same species that eventually evolved to become us; others suggested the Hobbits were descended from smaller, more primitive early humans such as Homo habilis or Australopithecus.”

   “The hobbit became extinct 50,000 years ago, about the time the first humans arrived on Flores, but the Pacific rat lived on.”

4. (US, slang, uncommon)A socially unappealing, overly academic student.
5. A Welsh unit of weight, equal to four Welsh pecks, or 168 pounds.
6. (archaic)An old unit of volume (2+¹⁄₂ bushels, the volume of 168 pounds of wheat).