Creatures created by Saruman,apparently by blending the races of Orcs and Men.Precisely what they were is mysterious - they are only ever mentioned once by name,during the Battle of the Hornburg - but the limited evidence available seems suggest that they were distinct from half-orcs.
Great Orcs :
A common name for the large soldier-orcs of Mordor and later also Isengard that troubled Gondor and Rohan in the late Third Age.In fact,this name is only ever used by �omer and may only have been current in Rohan but the fearsome creatures it described had been known for five hundred years when he spoke these words:creatures whose name in their own Black Speech was Uruk-hai.
Half-orcs :
Creatures bred from Orcs and Men by the Wizard Saruman in his stronghold at Isengard.Like Sauron's Uruk-hai,they could withstand sunlight.The more Man-like of them,of perhaps a slightly different breed, were known as Goblin-men.
Hobgoblins :
A name for the larger kinds of Orc found in Middle-earth in the Third Age.The term perhaps but doubtfully,refers to the large soldier-orcs known as Uruks.The term appears so rarely that there is little clear basis for a definition.Its only other occurrence is later in The Hobbit (7,Queer Lodgings) where Gandalf warns Bilbo that the Grey Mountains are 'simply stiff with goblins,hobgoblins and orcs of the worst description'.
Orcs of the Mountains :
A race of Orcs that inhabited the Misty Mountains.They were of a recognisably different kind to other Orcs,being somewhat larger than most and well adapted for life in their tunnels beneath the Mountains. Their most important contribution to history was at the beginning of the Third Age,when they descended from their Mountains to attack Isildur as he rode home from the War of the Last Alliance.Thus,the Orcs of the Mountains were directly responsible for the loss of the Ruling Ring that Isildur carried.Long centuries after that fateful raid,their chieftain Azog slew the Dwarf-king Thr�r and so triggered the long War of the Dwarves and Orcs.After that War,most of the Orcs of the Mountains were slain or scattered but some survived under the leadership of Azog's son Bolg.They still had a part to play in history: not least because it was the capture of Bilbo Baggins and his companions by a band of these Orcs that led to the finding of the Ring - the same Ring their ancestors had caused to be lost nearly 3,000 years before.
Snaga :
A contemptuous term for the lesser Orcs of Mordor and Isengard,used especially among the larger and stronger Uruk-hai.It comes from a word in the Black Speech meaning 'slave'.
Uruk-hai :
The great soldier-Orcs that first appeared in the late Third Age;they were larger and stronger than their forebears and could withstand the light of the Sun.
Uruks :
A term for the large soldiers more fully referred to as Uruk-hai.
