Goblin

[Dr. Goodword]

• goblin •
Pronunciation: gahb-lin • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: Grotesque, evil folkloric creature.

Notes: We have our choice of adjectives meaning "like goblins" or "having goblins": goblined or goblinesque. Goblinism is the belief that goblins really do exist. A hobgoblin is less frightening than a goblin. The word for this wordis often used amusingly.

In Play: We meet this word in fairy tales and in conversations with people who believe in such: "Marygrove bought a house with a basement that the neighbor said was home for several ghouls and goblins." Otherwise, it may be used figuratively to refer to the evils goblins are supposed to express: "Wall Street continues to be infested with the goblins of all financial institutions: volatility, inflation, recession, and so on and on."

Word History: The origin of today's Good Word remains a mystery. In Middle English it was gobelin, so speculation has it that the word taken from Old French where it is still very much alive today. That would have come from a post-Classical Latin word, cobalus or covalus "demon", which was borrowed from Greek kobalos "goblin", a word originally meaning "rogue, knave" + French -in, a suffix denoting a member of a group. This trail ends up in Greek, though. The suffix -in is more easily traced: French finally feminized it as -ine after Latin -ina and Greek -ine. It probably originated in the PIE word en "in", source of Albanian në "in", Latin in "in", English in, Greek en "in", Russian v(n) "in(to)",and Armenian i "in" (from the original in). (Now, lest the goblins get us, a word or two of gratitude to Ana Jung, who noticed the omission of today's mysterious Good Word from our dictionary and shared her concern with us.)

[bbeeton]

Gobelin is also associated with tapestries and a particular needlepoint stitch (that is meant to resemble the appearance of threads in a tapestry). It was the name of the founder of a French establishment known for the tapestries it produced.

I don't know that any evil, or even questionable, attributes were associated with these tapestries. Quite the opposite; I believe they were highly valued.