Definition of "gnome" in English

noun

1. (magic, alchemy, Rosicrucianism) An elemental (spirit or corporeal creature associated with a classical element) associated with earth.

2. (mythology, fantasy) One of a race of imaginary human-like beings, usually depicted as short and typically bearded males, who inhabit the inner parts of the earth and act as guardians of mines, mineral treasure, etc.; in modern fantasy literature and games, when distinguished from dwarves, gnomes are usually smaller than dwarves and more focused on engineering than mining.

3. (informal, derogatory) A person of a small stature or misshapen features, or of a strange appearance.

4. The mountain pygmy owl, Glaucidium gnoma, a small owl of the western United States.

5. A small statue of a dwarf-like character, often bearded, placed in a garden.

6. (astronomy, meteorology) An upper atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with thunderstorms, a compact blue starter.

7. (often derogatory) A banker, especially a secretive international one.

   • the gnomes of Zurich
   • 1985, Fodor's, Fodor's ... London, Fodor's For this is a creation of the City, of the country's financial heart, and of the gnomes of London who have financed it and supported it entirely on their own.

noun

1. A brief reflection or maxim; a pithy saying.

   • 1996, Giambattista Vico, Giorgio A. Pinton, Arthur W. Shippee (translators), The Art of Rhetoric, [1711-1741, Giambattista Vico, Institutiones Oratoriae], page 125, The Greeks in their tongue call this second type of maxim noema. The gnome is more appropriate to the philosophers, and the noema to the orators, to the poets, and to the historians. To speak by gnomes alone was referred to by the Greeks as "philosophizing" which we Italians would render as "to mouth maxims" (sputar sentenze).