About the Middle-earth Glossary & Word-hoard

The interactive Middle-earth glossary contains an A to Z listings of the most important characters, places, and things mentioned in Greg's book, The Origin of Tolkien's Middle-earth For Dummies. This glossary contains hyperlinks to all the internal cross-references as well as external links to all the maps of Middle-earth that are mentioned in many, if not most of the place entries. You can flip back and forth easily between the Middle-earth maps and the place entries you're looking up. To peruse the Middle-earth glossary page, click the Glossary button.

The map files linked to entries in the Middle-earth glossary are saved in Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format). These maps open in separate windows provided that you already have the Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer. If you don't have Adobe Reader installed on your computer, click the Get Adobe Reader link to go to Download Adobe Reader page on the Adobe Web site and follow their download instructions. The Adobe Reader is a free download that is available in two versions: Basic or Full. To have PDF files open in your Web browser, you must download the Full version (which, be warned, is slightly over 15 MB for the Windows version and 20 MB for the Mac version). For complete instructions on how to download and install the Adobe Reader, refer to my book, Adobe Acrobat 6 PDF For Dummies.

The Middle-earth Word-hoard contains a list of archaic and often obsolete English words that J.R.R. Tolkien uses in The Lord of the Rings. These are not terms invented by Tolkien, but rather obscure words that he used in his text and just expected that his readers would know. Click the Word-hoard button to visit this page.

Special thanks to my readers who've written with suggested additions for this second edition of the Word-hoard. If you come across more obscure terms in your reading of The Lord of the Rings that you'd like to see added to this word list, just e-mail me the word and I'll consider adding it. 

Last modified: 10/08/05