dwarves

English

Noun

dwarves

1. plural of dwarf
   • 1842, George Webbe Dasent, transl., The Prose Or Younger Edda Commonly Ascribed to Snorri Sturluson, page 8:

     Then said Þriði: They took also his skull and made thereof heaven and set it up over the earth with four sides, and under each corner they set dwarves: they hight thus Austri, Vestri, Norþri, Suþri.

   • 1854, Rudolph Keyser, translated by Barclay Pennock, The Religion of the Northmen, page 299:

     The belief in Dwarves as inhabitants of the interior of the earth and especially of large isolated rocks, was likewise a direct offshoot of the Asa-Mythology.

   • 2001, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Well of Darkness, HarperCollins, page 139:

     When the human magi arrived, Dunner was the dwarf responsible for arbitrating between them and the dwarves as to location and the hundreds of other minor quibbles that seemed likely to turn into major battles, owing to simple misunderstandings of each other's ways.

Usage notes

As this word seemingly found its origins as a misspelling by J. R. R. Tolkien himself, and then "regularised", it is commonly used for the fantasy race instead of the other definitions.

Anagrams

• swarved