Word.ws English Dictionary

Hobbes

UK/hɒbz//hɑbz/

Hobbes proper noun: a surname originating as a patronymic.

Proper noun

Hobbes (plural Hobbeses)

  1. A surname originating as a patronymic.
    1. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), English philosopher.
      • Masters and men, according to Mr. Thornton, fatally confront each other in something like Hobbes’s misanthropically imagined state of nature, with nothing but force, or the fear of force in the background […]1871, “Economic Fallacies and Labour Utopias”, in The Quarterly Review, volume 131, number 261, page 244
      • The ideological gap between figures like Boehner and antagonists like Ted Cruz is not completely nonexistent; a world in which Boehner had unfettered power would have a radically smaller government, while a Cruz-topia would look more like Hobbes’s state of nature.2015 October 9, Jonathan Chait, “Why Republicans Need Paul Ryan As House Speaker”, in New York

Forms of Hobbes

pluralHobbeses

Origin of Hobbes

From a medieval diminutive form of the given name Robert + the patronymic suffix -s.

Words formed from Hobbes

Words that rhyme with Hobbes

Questions about Hobbes

What does Hobbes mean?
Hobbes means a surname originating as a patronymic.
What part of speech is Hobbes?
Hobbes is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Hobbes?
Hobbes is pronounced /hɒbz/ (UK).

Words near Hobbes in the dictionary

  1. hobbel
  2. hobbels
  3. hobber
  4. hobber-nob
  5. hobbers
  6. Hobbes
  7. Hobbeses
  8. Hobbesian
  9. Hobbesianism
  10. Hobbesians
  11. Hobbesism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Hobbes (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-Hobbes.oga.

Cite this entry: “Hobbes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hobbes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.