I've recently re-read "The Hobbit" (it's one of my favorite books).
Every once in a while I came to a word that I did not know the meaning.

Here is my list of words from "The Hobbit" that I did not know:

Prosy
- Dull; commonplace - arousing no interest, attention, curiosity or excitement.

Porter
- A dark beer resembling light stout, made from malt browned or charred by drying at a high temperature.

Bewuthered
- Appears to be a word unique to "The Hobbit". It's context would suggest it is synonymous with "Bewildered".

Palpitating
- To pulsate with unusual rapidity from exertion, emotion, disease, etc.; flutter: His heart palpitated wildly.

Flummoxed
- Confused; Perplexed

Bracken
- Type of fern or an area overgrown with ferns and shrubs.

Eyrie
- The nest of a bird, such as an eagle, built on a cliff or other high place.

Tuppence
- A very small amount.

Attercop
- A type of spider or a peevish, ill-natured person.

Tomnoddy
- A fool or a dunce.

Slowcoach
- Someone who moves slowly; a "slowpoke"

Turnkey
- A person who has charge of the keys of a prison; jailer.

Solemnities
- State or character of being solemn; earnestness; gravity; impressiveness: the solemnity of a state funeral.

Mattocks
- A digging tool with a flat blade set at right angles to the handle that can also be used as a weapon.

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Ooh, nice! I'm totally using "bewuthered" and "tomnoddy" ASAP.

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The only ones I didn't know when I read The Hobbit for the first time were Attercop, Tomnoddy, Porter, and Prosy.

I always enjoyed Bilbo's spiting the spiders, though.

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Hmm...Prosy, palpitating, flummoxed, tuppence, tomnoddy, slowcoach, solemnities...I did know those words. But the others are quite enlightening! Thank you for sharing them!

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That's so interesting. I wonder if someone would research the history on those words, it may be interesting!

ah wow bewuthered it a great word

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Wow! I don't know why I never noticed those words... I must not have been paying attention to specific word choice.
Attercop and bewuthered are my favorites from your list; thanks for posting them, suncrafter!

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Out of the ones you mentioned, my favorites are bewuthered, eyrie, attercop, and tomnoddy.

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A digging tool with a flat blade set at right angles to the handle that can also be used as a weapon.

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It's so funny. I never noticed a few of the words in the story. I tend to auto understand a lot of things when I read or listen to something. It's weird.
Flummoxed, Porter, Palpitating, Bracken, Eyrie, Solemnities, and Slowcoach were words I already knew going into the book.
I have to say Tomnoddy and Attercop have to be two of my new favourite descriptive words.
Bewuthered is also a really interesting word. Just by looking at the spelling it looks like kind of like a medieval word.

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^I'm the same. Sometimes one of my siblings asks me what a word means and I realised I could use the word in the proper context without actually knowing the definition.

I will definitely start using flummoxed and Bewurthered

I'm reading Douglas Anderson's The Annotated Hobbit, and here are a few interesting tidbits of information from there:

-The name "Baggins" probably comes from the term bagging, which, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is "used in the northern counties of England for food eaten between regular meals; now, especially in Lancashire, an afternoon meal, 'afternoon tea' in substantial form." The word is also found in Walter E. Haigh's A New Glossary of the Dialect of the Huddersfield District, but is spelled bæggin, and it's defined there as "a meal, now usually 'tea,' but formerly any meal; a bagging. Probably so called because workers generally carried their meals to work in a bag of some kind."

-"The Old Norse word gull means "gold." In the oldest manuscripts it is spelled goll. One inflected form would be gollum, "gold, treasure, something precious." It can also mean "ring," as is found in the compound word fingr-gull, "finger-ring" - points that may have occurred to Tolkien."

-The word "attercop" comes from the Old English word attorcoppe, a spider, from ātor, attor, poison, and coppe, which probably means head. This was because it was an old idea that spiders were poisonous insects.

Isn't that fascinating? I love studying the root meanings of words. I know that a big part of what makes Middle-earth so rich and unique among all other fantasy creations is Tolkien's extensive knowledge of language; his creativity just amazes me!!

Wow.... that is very interesting indeed! I have not heard of the Annotated Hobbit? I will have to look that up! Thanks for sharing!

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You're welcome! And yes, do check it out; it is loaded with information, including a short biography of Tolkien, the sources that helped shape his writings, and Tolkien's own comments that give us insight into the story. It also includes "The Quest of Erebor," which is Gandalf's own account of how he arranged the quest and why he chose Bilbo to accompany the dwarves. And I love that it has Tolkien's sketches, as well as illustrations from various editions of The Hobbit published all around the world.

Sounds very interesting!

So is it the actual hobbit story (just like the normal book) just with all that other stuff added in?

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Yes, that's right; all the extra information is in the margins and at the beginning and end.