gremlin

English
WOTD – 7 June 2022

Etymology
An American World War II (c. 1942–1943) workplace safety poster featuring gremlins (sense 1.2).

Uncertain; the following etymologies have been suggested:[1]

  • A variant of goblin.
  • From Irish gruaimín (“gloomy little person”); or from Dutch gremmelen (“to soil, stain; to spoil”), or griemelen, grimmelen (“(obsolete) to abound, teem; to swarm”), but according to the Oxford English Dictionary there is little evidence for such derivations.

The word was popularized, especially in the United States, by the children’s novel The Gremlins (1943) by the British author Roald Dahl (1916–1990),[1] in which gremlins sabotage Royal Air Force aircraft in revenge for the destruction of their forest home to make way for an aircraft factory; the creatures later join forces with the British to fight the Nazis.

Pronunciation
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹɛmlɪn/
  • (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹɛmlən/
  • Audio (GA)(file)
  • Hyphenation: grem‧lin

Noun

gremlin (plural gremlins)

  1. (originally British, aviation, Royal Air Force slang) [from 1920s]
    1. (obsolete) A contemptible person.
      Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonentity
    2. An imaginary creature reputed to be mischievously inclined, for example, to damage or dismantle machinery.
      • 2023 November 29, Richard Foster, “Tyne & Wear Metro goes with the flow”, in RAIL, number 997, page 34:
        Crucial time was saved by the fact Nexus didn't require a Transport & Works Act. Nevertheless, other gremlins kept raising their heads.
  2. (by extension)
    1. Any mysterious, unknown source of mischief or trouble, or the problem created thereby.
      Synonyms: bug, glitch, hitch
      We rechecked everything, and we suspect gremlins in the database.
    2. (surfing, skateboarding, slang) A young, inexperienced surfer or skateboarder, regarded as a nuisance. [from 1960s]
      Synonyms: grem, gremmie, gremmy, grommet

Derived terms

Translations

References
  1. “gremlin, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2019; “gremlin, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

Anagrams
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