Word.ws English Dictionary

dwarrow

dwarrow noun: a dwarf (member of a race of beings usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves).

Noun

dwarrow (plural dwarrows)

  1. (rare) A dwarf (member of a race of beings usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves).
    • 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...[1937 October 15, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “To Stanley Unwin, Chairman of Allen & Unwin”, in Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien, editors, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Boston, Mass....
    • 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...[1955 October 20, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Appendix F”, in The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings […], New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published December...

Examples of dwarrow in a sentence

  • The real ‘historical’ plural of dwarf (like teeth of tooth) is dwarrows, anyway: rather a nice word, but a bit too archaic.[1937 October 15, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “To Stanley Unwin, Chairman of Allen & Unwin”, in Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher...
  • 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.[1955 October 20, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Appendix F”, in The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings...
  • HE’LL BE JOINING YE ON YER QUEST AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PROUD NATION OF WATER-DWARROWS.2011, Grant Morrison, Joe the Barbarian: The Deluxe Edition, New York, N.Y.: DC Comics, →ISBN:
  • The old stories told of beings called dweorgas or dwarrows.2015, Bernhard Hennen, James A. Sullivan, translated by Edwin Miles, “The Children of the Darkalben”, in The Elven, Seattle, Wash....

Forms of dwarrow

pluraldwarrows

Origin of dwarrow

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).

Words formed from dwarrow

Questions about dwarrow

What does dwarrow mean?
Dwarrow means a dwarf (member of a race of beings usually depicted as having some sort of supernatural powers and being skilled in crafting and metalworking, often as short with long beards, and sometimes as clashing with elves).
How do you use dwarrow in a sentence?
The real ‘historical’ plural of dwarf (like teeth of tooth) is dwarrows, anyway: rather a nice word, but a bit too archaic.
What part of speech is dwarrow?
Dwarrow is a noun.
What is the plural of dwarrow?
The plural of dwarrow is dwarrows.

Words near dwarrow in the dictionary

  1. dwarfs
  2. dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants
  3. dwarfsploitation
  4. dwarfy
  5. Dwarka
  6. dwarrow
  7. dwarrowdam
  8. dwarrowdams
  9. dwarrows
  10. dwarven
  11. dwarves

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dwarrow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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