This word escaped our original edition of the concordance because I lemmatized it under “worm”, a common word.  But now that we’re thinking about hyphens, I’ve returned to rescue this delightful word from the shadows.  If anyone knows of a good paper about were-worms, I would love to link it here –

• 01.097 and fight the wild Were-worms

The word does not appear in OED.

A one-of-a kind scent, I’m sure!  This tells us about the refinement of Smaug’s olfactory sense and the distance of Lonely Mountain from The Shire.

• 12.062 that there was one smell he could not make out at all, hobbit-smell;

Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.

“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.

This is one of the clearest clues that these hyphenated words are Tolkien’s putative translation artifacts.  If I were decsribing this scene about a person of my own species, I would say that the steps were not made, all the same, for a child’s legs, or for a middle-aged woman’s legs…

[13.044] The steps were not made, all the same, for hobbit-legs, and Bilbo was just feeling that he could go on no longer, when suddenly the roof sprang high and far beyond the reach of their torch-light.

I believe that “hobbit-legs” indicates a single word like “shank”, in Westron, meant to convey “the legs of a hobbit” – a very specialized word indeed.  The passage takes place as Bilbo and the dwarves clamber through the Mountain to the chamber of Thror.

• 13.044 for hobbit-legs,

Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.

“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.

The best way to become familiar with the hobbit-lands is with The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad, a professional cartographer who turned her skills to charting the maps of fictional worlds based on close reading of the texts.

• 02.028 At first they had passed through hobbit-lands,

Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.

“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.

And that means comfort!

• 01.001 it was a hobbit-hole,
• 01.005 built the most luxurious hobbit-hole for her
• 01.005 in the beautiful hobbit-hole built by his father,
• 01.070 and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.
• 01.110 and only of hobbit-holes).
• 03.004 in his hobbit-hole,
• 03.031 right back to his hobbit-hole without trouble.
• 04.002 and his little hobbit-hole.
• 04.017 and again for his nice bright hobbit-hole.
• 04.045 “Why, O why did I ever leave my hobbit-hole!”
• 08.074 of his far-distant hobbit-hole
• 09.012 in my hobbit-hole
• 11.020 in his hobbit-hole,
• 11.022 and his hobbit-hole under it.
• 15.035 in Bilbo’s little hobbit-hole.
• 19.037 in his nice hobbit-hole so very much.

Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.

“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.

Still teasing out hyphenated words, here’s the obvious next one, still also findable under “hobbit“!

• 01.006 and hobbit-girls.

Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.

“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.

In our endeavor to tease out the hyphenated words and study them, I present “hobbit-boy”; the word is still listed in the entry for “hobbit” as well.

• 01.006 since they were all small hobbit-boys
• 01.043 as if some naughty little hobbit-boy was trying to pull the handle off.

Although “Hobbit” is listed in OED – and an invention of Tolkien’s – no hyphenated forms are.

“hobbit, n.” OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2017, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/87449. Accessed 14 September 2017.

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,

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