I have given this word its own entry in addition to entry in Grim because of our interest in hyphenated words. It refers, of course, to Bard. This word is not found in OED.
- 14.018 and grim-faced,
100K
Grim-voiced
In all three cases referring to Bard – and although he speaks in a handful of chapters, it is only in chapter 14 that we see this word describing him.
I also talk about this word in the Grim entry, since we are interested in who and what are grim in any way, but out hyphen adventure leads me to separate “Grim-voiced” into its own entry as well. this compound word is JRRT original, not found in OED.
- 14.009 But the grim-voiced fellow ran hotfoot to the Master.
- 14.013 if it had not been for the grim-voiced man
- 14.018 grim-voiced
Trestle-tables
If you make them right, they’re easy to set up and then disassemble out of the way. They’re not exclusively for meals, though, so they’re not a food word.
- 7.093 and quickly laid on the trestle-tables.
Hyphenated in its sub-entry in OED.
“trestle, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/205619. Accessed 21 September 2017.
Goblin-imp
Here it is for now, a tasty treat that Gollum enjoyed a few hours before Chapter 5.
- 05.087 and caught a small goblin-imp.
This word is not found in OED.
A Few Special Words
We tagged a few other categories of words as we went along. Remembering that while the Concordance has all 1534 uncommon words entered, I have only had chance to thoroughly examine and make special notes on the 300 which were the most interesting to me and seemed the most likely to be “archaic” or a “gem” or to fit the other ideas I was curious about. In fact, if you search on the tag “brief”, you will find those words for which I only made a plain concordance entry.
Meanwhile, those special other tags. There are not many of them, so I concatenated them all onto one graphic for us:
The few blue words are tagged “British” – from Scottish, Irish, and Cumbrian. The green graph shows us the words from outside the most frequent hundred thousand words in the Project Gutenberg corpus, tagged 100K. I also had a few thoroughly subjective tags. The red graph shows us words I tagged “funny” (and a few which the OED calls “jocular”), and I’ve been told that my sense of humour is flawed. For example, I think the word “quoits” sounds funny and that “burglar” is funny for being anti-heroic. The few delightful plum words are my personal favorites with the “gem” tag (yes, the lovely Cumbrian word “carrock” is also one of my gems). They are the words which I discovered had multiple meanings and nuanced connotations which all contribute to Tolkien’s elegant storycraft.
Oak-wood
Note that this is not the wood of an oak, but a woods of oak trees. this concept has its own entry in OED, but it is always two words with a space or one single word, never hyphenated. I am giving this spelling the JRRT tag.
- 07.023 in an oak-wood
- 08.042 a butterfly that loves the tops of oak-woods,
“oak, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/129461. Accessed 19 September 2017.
Lone-lands
- 02.028 Now they had gone on far into the Lone-lands,
- 02.028 in the Lone-lands they had been obliged to camp when they could,
Obviously it’s a JRRT creation as a place name – but as a descriptive, it’s also not in the OED.
Lake-town
Note that in almost all instances “Lake-town” is the proper name of the town, well and good. But once, in 14.002, it is a word in itself a kind of town, the uncapitalized “lake-town Esgaroth”. “Lake-town” is not attested in OED.
- 09.019 From Lake-town the barrels were brought up the Forest River.
- 09.020 and floated back to Lake-town,
- 09.064 down the stream to Lake-town.
- 10.009 into the little bay of Lake-town.
- 10.009 in Lake-town.
- 10.017 I suggest Lake-town,’
- 10.038 coming down the river to Lake-town.
- 10.040 in Lake-town,
- 10.045 three large boats left Lake-town,
- 11.019 and tools of many sorts from Lake-town,
- 12.085 to take to Lake-town all right,
- 12.087 from Lake-town
- 14.002 The men of the lake-town Esgaroth
- 14.031 In the Lake-town we have always elected masters
- 18.034 to the Master of Lake-town;
- 19.043 and Lake-town was refounded
Hind-legs
- 07.092 The dogs could stand on their hind-legs when they wished,
This word is not in OED as one word – a JRRT original.
High-walled
- 12.032 and the little high-walled bay had kept out his fiercest flames.
A perfectly proper OED combined word.
“high, adj. and n.2.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/86850. Accessed 14 September 2017.
