GOBLIN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does goblin mean? 

• GOBLIN (noun)
  The noun GOBLIN has 1 sense:

1. (folklore) a small grotesque supernatural creature that makes trouble for human beings

  Familiarity information: GOBLIN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GOBLIN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(folklore) a small grotesque supernatural creature that makes trouble for human beings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

goblin; hob; hobgoblin

Hypernyms ("goblin" is a kind of...):

evil spirit (a spirit tending to cause harm)

Domain category:

folklore (the unwritten lore (stories and proverbs and riddles and songs) of a culture)

 Context examples 

But I thought she was rather so, when she tossed up his two half-crowns like a goblin pieman, caught them, dropped them in her pocket, and gave it a loud slap.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha! ha! She then was there.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"What fun it was, especially going by the lions, fighting Apollyon, and passing through the valley where the hob-goblins were," said Jo.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. She's like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you going to do? You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast's den—a goblin's cell.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)