In the Harry Potter books, a muggle is a non-magical person who is unaware of the wizarding world. The term was used before the books were published and has been adopted by other groups. Wizards can be born into muggle families and some look down on muggle-born wizards. Non-magical individuals born into magical families are called squibs. Wizards can also marry muggles, resulting in half-blood offspring.
In the wizarding world created in the Harry Potter books written by JK Rowling, a muggle is an individual who has no magical powers. Most of the world is inhabited by muggles, who go about their daily lives completely unaware of the wizarding world that is actually all around them. While readers might be tempted to think of muggles as second-class citizens, Rowling is careful to portray them as ordinary human beings ranging from perfectly nice, well-meaning individuals to nasty families like the Dursleys.
The term “muggle” was actually used in popular culture before Rowling’s books were published. Beginning in the 1920s, it was a slang term for marijuana, and it also appeared with various meanings in several children’s books. Since the release of the Harry Potter series, several groups have adopted the term to refer to people outside their group: Pagans, for example, may call non-Pagans Muggles. The Oxford English Dictionary has also picked up on the term, using it to refer to individuals who are clumsy or unable to acquire a new skill.
The Harry Potter series opens with the young hero’s life with the Dursleys, the adoptive family who have cared for him since his parents’ mysterious deaths at the age of one. Although he is a wizard, Harry grew up in the Muggle world and is unaware of the wizarding world his parents inhabited. When he turns 11, Harry is informed that he is actually a wizard and has the right to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is swept away on a magical adventure, though he’s still forced to put up with his boring Muggle family over the holidays.
According to Rowling, a wizard can be born into a Muggle family, and indeed one of the main characters in the books, Hermione Granger, was born a Muggle. Some wizards who come from families that have practiced magic for centuries look down on Muggle-born wizards, calling them “mudbloods,” in reference to their unclean origins. This term is considered highly offensive by most of the wizarding community, who view muggle-borns on an equal footing with ordinary wizards.
More rarely, a non-magical individual will be born into a magical family. In this case, the individual is known as a squib. Squibs live an odd half-life, because they’re connected to the wizarding world by birth, but aren’t actually wizards themselves. Also, many squibs aren’t quite muggles: they can see more magical acts than muggles can, for example. Most continue to live and work in the wizarding world, such as Argus Filch, the Keeper of Hogwarts. Others seemingly pursue lives in the Muggle world, because they feel too disconnected from their wizarding relatives.
In some cases, wizards fall in love with Muggles and marry them. The resulting offspring are called half-bloods, in a nod to their mixed ancestry. Like muggle-borns, half-bloods are welcome by most of the wizarding community, although some pure-blood elites frown.
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