trolls

Noun (1)

troll (plural trolls)

1. (European, also) a giant supernatural being, especially a grotesque humanoid creature living in caves or hills or under bridges.
   • He followed their advice, and rode through a rye-field, where the Trolls were unable to follow him, but in their exasperation cried after him, "The red cock shall crow over thy dwelling." And behold! his house stood in a blaze.1851, Benjamin Thorpe, “Norwegian Traditions. [The Girl at the Sæter.]”, in Northern Mythology, […], volumes II (Scandinavian Popular Traditions and Superstitions), London: Edward Lumley, […], →OCLC...

   Synonyms:

   trow

   1. (European, also, obsolete, Scandinavian mythology) A type of diminutive supernatural being; a dwarf.
      • The more usual appellation of the Dwarfs is Troll or Trold, a word originally significant of any evil spirit, giant monster, magician, or evil person; but now in a good measure divested of its ill senses, for the Trolls are not in general regarded as noxious or malignant beings. [...] They are...1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, pages 195-161
2. (broadly, derogatory, slang) An ugly or unpleasant person.
   • The way Torchie had talked about him, I expected him to be some kind of troll. But he could have passed for one of those actors who makes a couple of movies, gets real popular with the girls for a year or two, and then vanishes from sight. He had that kind of face.1999, David Lubar, “Taking the Tour”, in Hidden Talents (A Tor Book), New York, N.Y.: Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN, page 17

   Synonyms:

   biffer, boner-shrinker, bonerkiller, buttface, choad, frump, minger, monkey, monkeyface, munter

   Antonyms:

   beaut, beauty, bobby-dazzler, crumpet, dish, vision, dreamboat, eye candy, good looker, looker

3. (broadly) An optical ejection from the top of the electrically active core region of a thunderstorm that is red in colour and seems to occur after tendrils of vigorous sprites extend downward towards cloudtops.
4. (broadly, informal, Michigan) A Michigander who lives on the mainland, i.e. not a resident of the Upper Peninsula, so named due to living south of the Mackinaw Bridge.
   • People from the Upper Peninsula—the UP, or the Yoop—some-times call citizens of northern Michigan trolls, because they live “below the bridge.”2014 May, Jerome Pohlen, Oddball Michigan: A Guide to 450 Really Strange Places, Chicago Review Press, →ISBN

Noun (2)

troll (plural trolls)

1. An act of moving round; a repetition, a routine.
   • They [legislators] reduce men to looſe counters merely for the ſake of ſimple telling, and not to figures vvhoſe povver is to ariſe from their place in the table. […] The troll of their categorical table might have informed them that there vvas ſomething elſe in the intellectual vvorld beſides...1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page...

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