What Is a Muggle in the Harry Potter World?

No matter how many times you’ve watched or read the Harry Potter series, you’ve definitely noticed the word ‘Muggle’ being mentioned thousands of times. If you need to clarify and understand these terms so you don’t get lost, read this article, or just look for the things you need an explanation for. You’re welcome Potterhead! 

What Does the Word ‘Muggle’ Mean & What Is A Muggle?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word ‘muggle’ as an informal noun, the meaning of which is ‘a person who is not conversant with a particular activity or skill.’

The word derives from the word ‘mug’, a British slang, which in the 20^th century was used to describe a foolish or stupid person. Precisely, the word ‘muggle’, which like many other words later adapted to an actual real-world meaning and added to the English Dictionary due to the popularity of the Harry Potter books, was invented by the children of author Joanne K. Rowling.

In the wizarding world of Harry Potter, of magic, witches, and wizards, the word ‘muggle’ means a person without magical powers, and is born to non-magical parents as well.

While the word ‘Muggle’ is used in the British wizarding world, in the United States of America its equivalent is ‘No-Maj’, which is short for ‘No Magic’. Both words- Muggle and No-Maj have the exact same meaning.

Differences Between a Muggle and Other Terms

Differences between a Muggle & Muggle-born:

While a Muggle has absolutely no magical powers, not even the slightest ones, a Muggle-born can become a fully competent witch or wizard with the right training and education. What both share in common, a Muggle and a Muggle-born is that they are both born to non-magical parents.

Differences between a Muggle & Pure-blood:

A Pure-blood is the complete opposite of a muggle. In simple terms, pure-bloods are those who have no muggle or muggle-born ancestor. In the Harry Potter series, pure-bloods are the Blacks, Malfoys, Prewetts and more. 

Differences between a Muggle & Half-blood:

While Muggles are not known for any close relatives with magical powers, a Half-blood has one magical parent (a pure-blood or half-blood), and a non-magical parent too.    

Differences between a Muggle and a MudBlood:

The term ‘mudblood’ in the wizarding society is racist and used as a derogatory term by individuals who consider themselves superior in the wizarding world, particularly pure-bloods (wizards from families with no Muggles in their family tree).

Differences between a Muggle and a Squib:

Both a squib and a muggle have no magic powers, and cannot lift even a feather no matter what magical wand is given into their hands. Yet, while a muggle is also born to non-wizard parents, a squib is an offspring of at least one wizarding parent. 

We must note that the magic gene still lives in the blood of squids, so they are capable of producing descendants with magical powers, even if they marry with muggles only, for generations. 

Differences between a Muggle and an Obscurus:

While we do not get a chance to see an Obscurus in the Harry Potter series, we meet with them for the first time in the “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” movie. Newton Scamander, the main protagonist of the movie, explains that young wizards and witches sometimes tried to suppress their magic to avoid persecution, and instead of learning to harness or control their powers, they developed what was called an Obscurus.

Unlike a muggle, who has no magical powers (as we said so many times), an Obscurial is a young wizard or witch who has developed a dark parasitical magical force, known as an Obscurus, as a result of their magic being suppressed. 

Differences between a Muggle and a Hippogriff:

Although Muggles and hippogriffs are so different, people tend to mess it up, probably because there are so many terms to be memorized. A Hippogriff in the Harry Potter world is basically a  weird creature, that has the body of a horse, but the limbs of a giant eagle. If you’re curious, here’s how it looks:

What Is Each Main Character In Harry Potter?

Harry Potter: Is Harry Potter a Muggle? No, Harry Potter is not a Muggle (beware: spoilers ahead). He is the son of pureblood wizard James Potter and Muggle-born witch Lily J. Potter (née Evans), so, Harry Potter is a half-blood. Harry is initially raised by Muggles until the age of 11 when he receives his acceptance letter to the British Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The rest is history!

Lily J. Potter: Lily Potter, the mother of Harry, is a Muggle-born witch, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Evans. 

Hermione Granger: Muggle-born Hermione Granger is a fully capable witch, and maybe one of the most powerful witches of her time. She is, however, a muggle-born, and therefore a mudblood to pureblood supremacists.

Ron & Ginny Weasley: Siblings Ron and Ginny come from a family of Pureblood, the well-known Weasleys. Therefore, they’re not muggles.

Molly Weasley: When talking about Weasleys, a very important member is Molly, the mother of Ron & Ginny, and a pure-blood witch. 

Neville Longbottom: Neville is not a muggle either. He’s a pure-blood wizard in the Harry Potter Series.

Luna Lovegood: Luna Lovegood, besides having a quirky personality, is a pure-blood witch too! 

Draco Malfoy: Draco comes from a pure-blood family too, making him a pureblood himself! 

Rubeus Hagrid: Rubeus Hagrid is a Half-Blood wizard, specifically 

Albus Dumbledore: Although Albus is a natural talent, very powerful and intelligent, he actually is a half-blood, but a muggle-supporting wizard.

Voldemort: Voldemort’s mother was a witch, while his father was a muggle. This would make Voldemort half-blood, and not a muggle-born or a muggle.

Sirius Black: The older son of Orion and Walburga Black, Sirius, comes from a pure-blood wizarding family, which makes him a pure-blood wizard. 

Remus Lupin: Besides being a werewolf in the series, and doing a nasty job for the OFP, Remus is a half-blood wizard.

Minerva McGonagall: Being the daughter of a witch, and a Muggle, makes Minerva McGonagall a half-blood witch.

Severus Snape: Severus Snape too, is a half-blood, clearly because of his parents. 

Dobby: He’s self-explanatory. Dobby is a male-house elf, who mastered black wizards and served the Malfoy family.

Answering A Few Questions About Muggles, Pure-Bloods, Wizards:

Can a Muggle Turn Into a Wizard?

No, a muggle cannot turn into a wizard. At least there is no reference in the Harry Potter book series, the “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” or the “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” and its spin-offs. 

Aside from having no magical abilities at all, a muggle wouldn’t be able to cast a spell if he or she were to receive a magical wand, as the latter works only in the hands of true witches and wizards. 

Why do some wizards in Harry Potter hate Muggle-borns and Mudbloods?

Yes, pure-blood supremacists are the equivalent of white supremacists in our world. They look down on muggle-borns and call them mudbloods, which is a derogatory term. They, in fact, throughout the whole Harry Potter series tend to create a magical world without muggle-borns, as they believe they do not deserve to use their magical powers, as they do not have wizard parents. 

They believe that wizards and witches who have no muggles or muggle-borns in their family trees were biologically superior to wizards and witches who had so. Ironically, their leader – the Dark Lord – is not pure blood, as his father Tom Riddle Sr. is a muggle.

Do the Muggles Also Hate Wizards?

Given that the majority of muggles have no idea about an existing world of magic, witches and wizards – no they do not hate muggles. Some muggles that are aware of the existence of such a world, are rather afraid of it, so we cannot quite say they hate wizards.  

The perfect example of this is the Dursley family. They are so scared of wizards, to an extent you might think they deeply hate everything that has to do with the magical world when they do not even understand it. 

In the Harry Potter universe, do wizards take up Muggle jobs?

Actually, muggle jobs such as cleaning or cooking are done by elves. The rest of the jobs may be quite similar to those of muggles but are always somehow related to magic. We cannot exclude the fact that there may be some wizards and witches who decided to give up on their magical life and went on to work at a muggle post office, a shopping mall, muggle architects or doctors, etc. 

What Is ‘Cards Against Muggles’?

This new term isn’t something used in the Harry Potter series (although it would make their life better if yes). Cards Against Muggles is a card game for people who enjoy +18 jokes and dark humor and love the magical world of Harry Potter. There are 1400 cards, 990 of which are white cards and the rest are black cards. The game has the same rules as the standard Cards Against Humanity rules. 

Final Thoughts

For everyone who couldn’t enjoy the series fully, because they felt that they couldn’t set Harry Potter terms apart, or miss their meaning, we’re pretty optimistic that this article will help. Besides that, we explained extra stuff, and added differences between characters, starting from Muggles to hippogriffs!