means A fictional small humanoid creature invented by J.R.R. Tolkien, known for being short, fond of comfort and food, and living in cozy underground homes — and, by extension, anyone who prizes a quiet, homely life.

from Coined by J.R.R. Tolkien, who in 1937 famously wrote on a blank exam page he was grading, 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,' without yet knowing what the word meant. He later offered a playful invented etymology — that it descended from an Old English 'holbytla,' meaning 'hole-dweller' (from 'hol,' hole, plus 'bytlian,' to build) — though scholars regard this as a charming back-formation he devised rather than a genuine ancestral root. There is also a real but unrelated 'hobbit' recorded in a 19th-century list of supernatural creatures, which Tolkien said he didn't consciously remember.