muggle · noun — A person who has no magical abilities. It carries an Arena rating of 1451, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, muggle ranks #205 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #601 of 17,128 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,487 of 17,136 for Most Malleable Words, #3,347 of 17,106 for Most Storied Words.
muggle is pronounced /ˈmʌɡl̩/.
Why “muggle” is a great word
A person lacking magical abilities, especially in the context of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, or more broadly, one excluded from a particular skill or fellowship. Its origin is unknown, first attested in the mid-1920s in New Orleans, U.S.A., as a slang term for a marijuana cigarette or user, and popularized in its current primary sense by author J.K. Rowling in her Harry Potter series (first published 1997). Unlike "cowan," which confines its outsider status to Freemasonry, or "mundane," which can sneer at the ordinary, "muggle" is a precise, proprietary term for a hidden world's baseline condition. It is the neighbor who cannot see the platform at King's Cross, the quiet absence of a spark when fingers brush unresponsive stone, the patient, uncomprehending gaze from the wrong side of a threshold; we are all muggles somewhere, separated by veils of knowledge we cannot perceive we are not perceiving.
❧ Written by Lexicurio’s AI
Etymology
From mug (“gullible or easily cheated person”) + -le (diminutive suffix), coined by British author J. K. Rowling in her 1997 book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. She later said in a 2004 interview that the word was made to imply both "foolishness and loveability".
noun
- A person who has no magical abilities.e.g.“The magical and the muggle are separated by a river, wide and deep. I could see across, but I couldn't get across, [...].” — 2005, Christine Wicker, Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America, New York, N.Y.: HarperSanFrancisco, →ISBN, page 194:
- A person who lacks a particular ability or skill; a non-specialist; (also) a person who is not a member of a group; an outsider or cowan.e.g.“This video game won’t appeal to muggles.”
- A person who lacks a particular ability or skill; a non-specialist; (also) a person who is not a member of a group; an outsider or cowan.; A person not involved in the pastime of geocaching.
- Marijuana.
- A marijuana cigarette; a joint.
- Alternative letter-case form of Muggle.; A person who has no magical abilities.e.g.“The magical and the muggle are separated by a river, wide and deep. I could see across, but I couldn't get across, [...].” — 2005, Christine Wicker, Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America, New York, N.Y.: HarperSanFrancisco, →ISBN, page 194:
- Alternative letter-case form of Muggle.; A person who lacks a particular ability or skill; a non-specialist; also, a person who is not a member of a group; an outsider.
- Alternative letter-case form of Muggle.; A person who lacks a particular ability or skill; a non-specialist; also, a person who is not a member of a group; an outsider.; A person not involved in the pastime of geocaching.e.g.“Try not to let the muggles see you find a Cache.” — 2006, Wisconsin Natural Resources, Madison, Wis.: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 89:
verb
- To deface, destroy, or remove a geocache.e.g.“Okay, September 3. That was just last Monday—Labor Day—so the geocache had been muggled sometime during the past week.” — 2010, Katy Grant, chapter 1, in Hide and Seek, 1st trade paperback edition, Atlanta, Ga.: Peachtree Publishers, published 2012, →ISBN, page 14:
- Often followed by along: to live or work in an unorganized and unplanned way; to muddle along.e.g.“And zo thay muggled along, 'till tha volks all begun to make giame on them.” — 1872, Agrikler [pseudonym; Joseph Edwards], “Tha Man as Coodent Plaze Nubbody”, in Rhymes in the West of England Dialect. […], 2nd edition, Bristol, Somerset: Leech and Taylor, […], →OCLC, page 39:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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