dwarrow
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "No reviewer (that I have seen), although all have carefully used the correct dwarfs themselves, has commented on the fact (which I only became conscious of through reviews) that I use throughout the ‘incorrect’ plural dwarves. I am afraid it is just a piece of private bad grammar, rather shocking in a philologist; but I shall have to go on with it. Perhaps my dwarf – since he and the Gnome are only translations into approximate equivalents of creatures with different names and rather different functions in their own world – may be allowed a peculiar plural. The real ‘historical’ plural of dwarf (like teeth of tooth) is dwarrows, anyway: rather a nice word, but a bit too archaic. Still I rather wish I had used the word dwarrow."
- "It may be observed that in this book as in The Hobbit the form dwarves is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of dwarf is dwarfs. It should be dwarrows (or dwerrows), if singular and plural had each gone its own way down the years, as have man and men, or goose and geese. But we no longer speak of a dwarf as often as we do of a man, or even of a goose, and memories have not been fresh enough among Men to keep hold of a special plural for a race now abandoned to folk-tales, where at least a shadow of truth is preserved, or at last to nonsense-stories in which they have become mere figures of fun. […] It is to mark this that I have ventured to use the form dwarves, and so remove them a little, perhaps, from the sillier tales of these latter days. Dwarrows would have been better; but I have used that form only in the name Dwarrowdelf, to represent the name of Moria in the Common Speech: Phurunargian. For that meant ‘Dwarf-delving’ and yet was already a word of antique form."
- "The Elven leaders, led by Gwaigilion Elengal, seemed to favor a policy of a forward defense, followed by retreat and hopefully attrition of the Imperial forces. This was no good for Dwarrows, who were doughty warriors and could fight well in their hills and mountains. […] The barbarians (independent men, dwarrows, etc.) organize in the equivalent of the Terran Viking fylking, and the Orcs, Goblins and Corflu Cultists are formed into the equivalent of an understrength Terran Ottoman touman. […] Dwarrows hold a Folkmoot. No Dwarven units or Characters may move or attack on this Game-Turn."
- "Of course, Elves aren't Elves if they don't live in woods (Mallorn trees?), and Dwarves (Ooops, sorry Greg, Thom, and Ben--Dwarrows?)((Really only Ben-tpg)) aren't just the same if they don't live in mountains."
- "Maegwin is convinced that the Sithi live there, and that they will come to the rescue of the Hemystiri as they did in the old days, but the only inhabitants they discover in the crumbling city are the dwarrows, a strange, timid group of delvers distantly related to the immortals. The dwarrows, who are metalwrights as well as stonecrafters, reveal that the sword Minneyar that Josua’s people seek is actually the blade known as Bright-Nail, which was buried with Prester John, father of Josua and Elias."
- "At first I could see nothing; then one of the tree boles shifted and moved and came toward me, and I saw that it was no tree piece but a corrigaun, one of the dwarrows, the halfling faerie folk. […] The flaming sword was gone now, and he was no dwarrow more but a flame himself, white and gold and tall as a spear."
Etymology
Coined by J. R. R. Tolkien as a back-formation of Middle English dwarrows, an irregular plural of dwergh, which became dwarfs in Modern English through leveling with dwarf. Within Tolkien's legendarium, dwarrow is only used in Dwarrowdelf, an alternative name for Moria (see the quotations by Tolkien).