Elfism
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The belief in elves as supernatural beings. countable, uncountable
"A writer during the reign of Elizabeth, or soon after, supposed to be no less a personage than the Bishop of Oxford, has, in an ingenious satire, quoted by Sir Walter Scott in his excellent work on Demonology, fixed the period of the decline of elfism - if our readers will tolerate the word — in the latter part of the sixteenth century."
- 2 An elflike saying, based on fictional depictions such as the movie Elf or puns on the word elf. countable, uncountable
"Elves love to tell stories. I'll bet you didn't know that about elves. There's probably a lot of things you didn't know about elves. Another interesting elf-ism: there are only three jobs available to an elf. The first is making shoes at night while, you know, the old cobbler sleeps."
- 3 The quality or state of being elflike; elfishness. countable, uncountable
""Well, my dears, I have had a passion to express all the Kewpish babyism and elfism in the dolls as well as in the drawings, the wisdom, the kind funniness, the funny kindness.""
Example
More examples"A writer during the reign of Elizabeth, or soon after, supposed to be no less a personage than the Bishop of Oxford, has, in an ingenious satire, quoted by Sir Walter Scott in his excellent work on Demonology, fixed the period of the decline of elfism - if our readers will tolerate the word — in the latter part of the sixteenth century."
Etymology
From elf + -ism.
More for "elfism"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.