Hobbes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Thomas Hobbes, the 17th-century English philosopher whose works on governance and human nature profoundly influenced political thought
2. The influential English thinker of the 1600s famous for his pessimistic view of human nature and his theory of the social contract
3. A major political philosopher from England whose ideas about absolute authority and the natural state of mankind shaped modern philosophy

Etymology: "Hobbes" is a surname, and its origin lies in a pet form of a very common English given name. Robert was shortened in the Middle Ages to "Hob," a diminutive that became a familiar nickname for any Robert, and the addition of the patronymic "-s" turned it into a family name meaning, in effect, "son of Hob." Surnames of this kind were common across medieval England, where many family names grew out of a father's given name in just this way. The name's association with the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is a later matter of fame attached to an ordinary surname, not a source of the name itself. Readers who meet the word as a surname are therefore meeting one of the many Robert-derived names that filled the English record, with the philosopher simply the best-known bearer.