Hogwarts
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a school for learning magic in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.
"Buffy: No, but, see, Mom, that doesn't really work for me. We're just going to the magic shop, no school supplies there. Dawn: Yeah, Mom. I'm not going to Hogwarts."
- 2 Any institution similar in field, appearance, or oddity.
"The school, which is set within a grand castle (it's all very Hogwarts), is an international college for students who are selected for their potential"
Example
More examples"Interestingly, Hogwarts Quidditch players are allowed to use whatever broomsticks they like or their sponsors can afford, despite the fact that more expensive brooms often confer great (and arguably unfair) advantages in speed and manoeuvrability."
Etymology
Coined by J. K. Rowling in her 1997 book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Rowling has speculated that she might have subconsciously produced the name from hogwort, a plant she saw when walking round Kew Gardens. Previously used by Geoffrey Willans in his 1953 book Down With Skool (which J. K. Rowling has read - see the article). Willan’s use was as the title of a fictitious play, “The Hogwarts”, referred to in the book as the creation of Marcus Plautus Molesworthus. In-universe, interpreted as a simple compound of hog + warts (cf. warthog).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.