Encyclopedia of Arda: Hobgoblins

"Orc is not an English word. It occurs in one or two places but is usually translated goblin (or hobgoblin for the larger kinds)²"

Preface to The Hobbit

A name for the larger kinds of Orc found in Middle-earth in the Third Age. The term perhaps, but doubtfully, refers to the large soldier-orcs known as Uruks.

The term appears so rarely that there is little clear basis for a definition. Its only other occurrence is later in The Hobbit (7, Queer Lodgings) where Gandalf warns Bilbo that the Grey Mountains are 'simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs of the worst description'.

Notes

1	If 'hobgoblin' is just a general term for a large Orc, then their race is old indeed, predating the First Age. If, much less certainly, it refers to the Uruk-hai, then their appearance is more recent: about III 2475. This is recent in terms of the history of Middle-earth, but still five centuries earlier than Bilbo's adventures in The Hobbit.
2	In fact, 'orcs' appears exactly twice in The Hobbit: once in Gandalf's warning, given above, and once in Chapter 5, Riddles in the Dark: '...even the big ones, orcs of the mountains, go along at great speed...'

Hobgoblins

Greater Goblins

Notes

See also...