Slithering in The Hobbit is limited to stones and feet on stones.
- 03.012 Bilbo never forgot the way they slithered
- 06.040 and started other pieces below them slithering
- 13.049 their feet slithered on stones rubbed smooth
word
Scrumptious
From the word “scrimp” to meaning fastidious, to stylish, to a word of praise and, in food, deliciousness. The adverb “scrumptiously” is attested from the 1800s. I had rather wished that it was a word unique to Gollum, who uses it in an extraordinary blend of odd, alien, ridiculous, word-playful, and cannibalistically horrifying.
- 05.048 Is it scrumptiously crunchable?
“scrumptious, adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
“scrumptiously, adv.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
Scrabble
When it means scratching about with hands and feet, “scrabble” is largely a word to describe animal behavior and only human by association. Poor Gollum!
- 05.089 scrabbling here and there,
“scrabble, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
Ruddy
From the rare word “rud” meaning “red”, ruddy carries a goodly number of connotations which play together in this passage:
[12.013] and about him on all sides stretching away across the unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light.
“Ruddy” has to do with blushing from shame and anger, robust good health, reddish skin, heat, vigour, the reddish glow of fire, and aridity which causes flora to wither – the power, malice, and desolation of Smaug.
- 12.013 in the ruddy light.
“ruddy, adj., n., and adv.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
Parch
“Parched” is among the Hundred Thousand, but our form “parchingly” is not (nor is “parch”, although “parching” is!). “Parchingly” is a derivative form attested in the 1800s, and here’s our quotation:
1851 H. Melville Moby-Dick ci. 497 Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading.
I believe that Mr. Melville and I have different tastes. Not only do I love myself a good logarithm table or a nice analysis of variance to while away the long winter nights, I find Mr. Melville himself a bit sere. I may have written a few rash things in a high school English essay on the subject.
- 08.046 that they were also parchingly thirsty,
Update 2016.06.28: I am adding the “food” tag, as the word is related to thirst and nothing else.
“parching, adj.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
Oddment
Gollum and Bilbo have oddments.
- 05.084 in his hiding-place he kept a few wretched oddments,
- 16.003 of tattered oddments
Goggle
The early meaning “to look at obliquely” has become a direct stare. Even more interesting, OED suggests that goggle is an onomatopoeic word, expressive of oscillating movement. Ahem. Now we know what sound Gollum’s eyeballs make?
- 08.114 and hundreds of angry spiders were goggling at them all round
“goggle, v.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
Bash
This word is not in the Hundred Thousand either in its plain nor its inflected form as we have in Chapter 2. Observe with me that being outside of the most common hundred thousand words of Project Gutenberg does not make a word unknown. Just infrequent. Google’s Ngram viewer gives us “bash” as rising exponentially in use after 1960, outside of the time that works qualify for inclusion in Project Gutenberg. Did Tolkien contribute to the fame of the word?
- 02.080 and bashes to remember)
“bash, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
Drat
“Drat” is the aphetic form of the interjection “God rot”, and our chapter 2 derived verb is attested from the 1870s.
- 02.039 and dratting),
- 06.008 then drat him,
- 08.064 You dratted hobbit!
- 09.029 Drat this dwarvish racket!’
- 12.083 Drat the bird!’
“drat, int.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 1 June 2015.
Rune
Here’s another for which the inflection matters – “runes” is within the Hundred Thousand, but “rune”, from 01.104, is not.
- 01.105 You see that rune on the West side,
- 01.105 and the hand pointing to it from the other runes?
- 01.109 and three may walk abreast” say the runes,
- 02.115 but when we can read the runes on them,
- 03.035 Elrond knew all about runes of every kind.
- 03.035 This, Thorin, the runes name Orcrist,
- 03.040 beside the plain runes which say ‘five feet high the door
- 03.041 and he also liked runes
- 11.013 pondering over the runes
- 11.019 about the runes or the moon-letters,
words that you were saying 