gnome

noun

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

   “He adopts the Rosycrusian fancy of Gnomes, spirits which inhabit the earth, and who by their power form the ores of metals, and all the wonders met with in the inmost recesses of the globe.”

   “Day belongs to the earthlier deities—the stern, the harsh, and the cold. Gnomes are the spirits of daily hours. Toil, thought, and strife, beset us: we have to work, to quarrel, and to struggle: we have to take our neighbours in; or, at least, to avoid their doing so by us.”

   “Gnomes are perhaps the most useful of the elementals. A gnome can carry a person with it as it swims through the soil, provided it is strong enough to lift the person. The gnome cannot, however, provide air for that person[…].”

   “Elementals are the consciousness guiding the four classical elements of earth, fire, air, and water. These elementals are depicted as gnomes, salamanders, diminutive faeries known as sylphs, and merfolk, known as undines, respectively.”

2. 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.

   “When the trees were disposed of, the gnomes vanished again.”

   “There were not one but four gnomes standing at his feet. “I nearly trod on you,” Daniel said. “What are you doing here?” The gnomes just stood, looking up at him.”

3. (derogatory, informal)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.

   “There were ornamental ponds and shrubs clipped into animal shapes, painted concrete gnomes sitting on mushrooms, pink flamingos standing on one leg[.]”

   “Gnomes, more than any other garden feature, divide the gardening world. Once welcomed in the hallowed halls of the International Horticultural Exhibition at Chelsea, this year a lonesome gnome had the ignominity to be ejected from those same grounds, victim of a ban on all things mythical and unduly colourful.”

6. An upper atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with thunderstorms, a compact blue starter.
7. (derogatory, often)A banker, especially a secretive international one.

   “the gnomes of Zurich”

   “So far the major beneficiaries of the boom in gold have been deposed South American dictators, Middle Eastern potentates, and 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.”

   “The gnomes of Wall Street can trade on rumors, but Warren will only invest after the sale or merger has been announced.”

8. 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).”

   “Thus, the gnome concerning the precarious nature of, and the potential suffering in, human life sent by the gods uttered by Electra is deconstructed by her choice of paradigm. By using Tantalos as an illustration, the play overturns the apparent meaning of the gnome.”

name

1. An open-source, free software computer desktop environment for Unix operating systems.

verb

1. (Unix, slang)To unintentionally boot a GNOME desktop environment.

   “This new package got my system GNOME'd.”