Orc

Orc

An orc /ɔːrk/[1] is a fictional humanoid monster akin to a goblin.

Orcs have been, alongside Dragons, the great antagonists, or the cannon fodder, in many fantasy series for a long time. Orcs have even inspired some “Sci-Fi Versions” of them on the run. Contents

   1 Etymology
       1.1 Old English
       1.2 Modern English
   2 Tolkien’s Orc
   3 Dungeon’s and Dragons Orc
   4 Warcraft’s Orc
   5 Warhammer’s Orc
   6 Notes

Etymology

   "The word as far as I am concerned actually derived from Old English orc, demon, but only because of its phonetic suitability."
   ― J.R.R. Tolkien in Letter 144

Old English

The Latin: Orcus is glossed as “Orc, þyrs, oððe hel-deofol”[a] (“Goblin, spectre, or hell-devil”) in the 10th century Old English Cleopatra Glossary, about which Thomas Wright wrote, “Orcus was the name for Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, hence we can easily understand the explanation of hel-deofol. Orc, in Anglo-Saxon, like thyrs, means a spectre, or goblin.” The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal defines ork in the closely related Old Dutch language as a verslindend monster (“devouring monster”), and points at a possible origin in the Old Dutch nork “petulant, crabbed, evil person”.

Modern English

A monster called Orcus is mentioned in Edmund Spenser’s 1590 Faerie Queene. The Oxford English Dictionary records an Early Modern period orke, meaning “ogre”, in Samuel Holland’s 1656 fairy tale Don Zara, a pastiche of Spanish romances such as Don Quixote. It is presumed that ‘orke’/’ogre’ came into English via continental fairy-tales, especially from the 17th-century French writer Charles Perrault, who borrowed most of his stories and developed his “ogre” from the 16th-century Italian writers Giovanni Francesco Straparola (credited with introducing the literary form of the fairy tale) and Giambattista Basile, who wrote in the Naples dialect, stating that he was passing on oral folktales from his region. In the tales, Basile used huorco, huerco or uerco, the Neapolitan form of Italian orco, lit. “Ogre”, to describe a large, hairy, tusked, mannish beast who could speak, lived in a dark forest or garden and might capture and eat humans.

Tolkien’s Orc

Orcs were created during the First Age by Morgoth, they served him and Sauron, his later successor, as primary soldiers in their aims to dominate Middle-earth. It was believed that Morgoth had kidnapped a branch of the Elven race known as the Avari and deformed them, twisting them into the first Orcs.

Appearance

Orcs were described as smaller in stature than Men on average, strong but crooked in frame and bow-legged. One "huge orc-chieftain" was described as "almost Man-high", but some must have been of a similar size to Hobbits (Frodo and Sam succeeded in disguising themselves as Orcs in Mordor). Their overall appearance varied: they had long arms and fanged mouths; Tolkien describes them as "swart" or "sallow", although one in Mordor is "black-skinned" and others are described generally as "black" (possibly not a reference to skin colour).

Uruk-Hai

The Uruk-hai are a lot taller than normal orcs, "the size of men" possibly because of the crossbred of Orc and Man.

In Black Speech of Mordor the word Uruk means "orc" and hai means "people". So all uruks are orcs but not every orc is an uruk. For some reason, maybe of orc supremacy, the non-uruks weren't called uruk. They were known for derogatory terms such as apes and maggots.

Uruk-Hai are a specific breed of Uruks, which is another word for Orc, or Ork. Essentially translated Uruk means “Goblin” or "Orc" (as the two words were used interchangeably) and Uruk-Hai means “Goblin-Man”, "Orc-Man" or even "Human Orc".

uruk, n. great soldier orc. (LOTR:III p.409. cf. S. orch) uruk-hai, nm. people. 'uruk-folk'.

Warcraft’s Orc

   “Thok go through shiny hole. Then me fall down, but me good. Me find many good things to eat. We find village. We mash them and eat their food. Thok stop now. Head hurt from write.”
   ― Warcraft: Orcs & Humans Manual, p.17