Meaning

noun an imaginary being similar to a person but smaller and with hairy feet; invented by J.R.R. Tolkien

originCoined in its current sense by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s, featured in the novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Jocularly etymologized by him as from a hypothetical Old English *holbytla (literally “hole-builder”), from hol (“hole”) + bytlan (“to build”) + -a (“-er”). Tolkien was possibly influenced by similar terms for house-sprites (probably from Hob, a hypocoristic form of Robert),…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0