elf

A supernatural being or spirit associated with illness, mischief, and harmful or dangerous magical influence; in later Norse sources, sometimes divided into benevolent light elves (inhabiting Álfheimr) and malevolent dark elves.

[…] if theyr children at any time vvere frowarde and vvanton, they would ſay to them that the Guelfe or the Gibeline came. VVhich vvords novve from them (as many thinge els) be come into our vſage, and for Guelfes and Gibelines, we ſay Elfes & Goblins.

The man whom heauens haue ordaynd to bee / The ſpouſe of Britomart, is Arthegall: / He wonneth in the land of Fayeree, / Yet is no Fary borne, ne ſib at all / To Elfes, but ſprong of ſeed terreſtriall, / And whylome by falſe Faries ſtolne away, / Whyles yet in infant cradle he did crall; / Ne other to himſelfe is knowne this day, / But that he by an Elfe was gotten of a Fay.

A small, magical creature similar to a fairy, often mischievous, playful, or occasionally helpful.

For there and ſeveral other places / About mill dams and green brae faces, / Both Elrich, Elfs and Brownies ſtayed, / And Green gown’d Farries daunc’d and played; […]

IN Days of Old when Arthur fill’d the Throne, / Whoſe Acts and Fame to Foreign Lands were blown; / The King of Elfs and little Fairy Queen / Gamboll’d on Heaths, and danc’d on ev’ry Green.

A member of a race of tall, slender, graceful beings with pointed ears, typically immortal or very long-lived and possessing wisdom and magical abilities.

Much of fairy lore clusters around the so-called fairy rings, that is, the green circles in old pastures within which the elfs were supposed to dance at night by the light of the moon.

He was not speaking troll-talk now, but the language of Elfland, that grander tongue that he had had to speak when he was before the King: for he knew the language of Elfland although it was never used in the homes of the trolls, who preferred troll-talk. This language was spoken in those days also by men, for there were fewer languages then, and the elves and the people of Erl both used the same.

Ellipsis of Christmas elf.

Since you’ve been out, the news arrives / The Elfs’ Insurance Company’s gone.

A very diminutive person; a dwarf.

To twist into elflocks (of hair); to mat.

My face I'll grime with filth, blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots, and with presented nakedness outface the winds and persecutions of the sky.

Acronym of Executable and Linking Format, a common object file format for Unix.

In ELF executables, there aren't a whole lot of code caves (such as in the PE format), so you are not likely to be able to shove more than just a meager amount of shellcode into existing code slots […]

Initialism of extremely low frequency.

Acronym of English as a lingua franca (“English used by non-native speakers”).

The consequences of the massive volume of ELF to English taken as a whole, as the aggregate use of the language, is essentially a descriptive issue: what new features of English are emerging and taking hold?