Orc

An orc (sometimes spelt ork; /ɔːrk/), is a fictional race of humanoid monsters often found in works of modern fantasy. Originally called "Goblins," the concept of modern orcs can be found in George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin, and later adapted into J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy fiction, where the first uses of the word can be found.

In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, orcs appear as a brutish, aggressive, ugly, and malevolent race of monsters, contrasting with the benevolent Elves. He described their origins inconsistently, including as a corrupted race of elves, or bred by the Dark Lord Morgoth, or turned to evil in the wild. Tolkien's orcs serve as a conveniently wholly evil enemy that could be slaughtered without mercy.

The orc was a sort of "hell-devil" in Old English literature, and the orc-né (pl. orc-néas, "demon-corpses") was a race of corrupted beings and descendants of Cain, alongside the elf, according to the poem Beowulf. Tolkien adopted the term orc from these old attestations, which he professed was a choice made purely for "phonetic suitability" reasons.

Tolkien's concept of orcs has been adapted into the fantasy fiction of other authors, and into games of many different genres such as Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, and Warcraft.

The Anglo-Saxon word orc, which Tolkien used, is generally thought to be derived from the Latin word/name Orcus, though Tolkien expressed doubt about this. The term orcus is glossed as "orc, þyrs, oððe hel-deofol" ("Goblin, spectre, or hell-devil") in the 10th century Old English Cleopatra Glossaries, about which Thomas Wright wrote: "Orcus was the name for Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, hence we can easily understand the explanation of hel-deofol. Orc, in Anglo-Saxon, like thyrs, means a spectre, or goblin."

The term is used just once in Beowulf, as the plural compound orcneas, in the sense of a tribe of monstrous beings descended from Cain, alongside the elves and ettins (giants), who were condemned by God:

The meaning of Orcneas is uncertain. Frederick Klaeber suggested it consisted of orc < L. orcus "the underworld" + neas "corpses", to which the translation "evil spirits" failed to do justice. It is generally supposed to contain an element -né, cognate to Gothic naus and Old Norse nár, both meaning 'corpse'. If *orcné is to be glossed as orcus 'corpse', then the compound word can be construed as "demon-corpses", or "corpse from Orcus (i.e. the underworld)". Hence orc-neas may have been some sort of walking dead monster, a product of ancient necromancy, or a zombie-like creature.

The term "orc" is used only once in the first edition of Tolkien's 1937 The Hobbit, which preferred the term "goblins". "Orc" was later used ubiquitously in The Lord of the Rings. The "orc-" element occurs in the sword name Orcrist, which is given as its Elvish language name, and glossed as "Goblin-cleaver".