A gnome is a mythical creature characterize by its extremely small size and subterranean lifestyle. The word gnome is derived from the New Latin gnomus. It is often claimed to descend from the Greek gnosis, "knowledge", but more likely comes from genomos "earth-dweller", in which case the omission of e is, as the OED calls it, a blunder. Another possibility is that it comes from the Arabic نوم (Noum), which means sleep. It is also possible that Paracelsus simply made the word up.