The Old English word orcneas in Beowulf influenced J.R.R. Tolkien’s use of “orc.”
The word appears in the Beowulf manuscript in the phrase “orcneas,” within the poem’s genealogy of monstrous beings descended from Cain. Tolkien, a specialist in Old English, knew the poem and its vocabulary intimately.
Tolkien’s orcs are not simply copies of the creatures described in Beowulf. He developed them as a major race of servants used by the Dark Lords Morgoth and Sauron. In The Hobbit, Tolkien generally uses “goblins,” while The Lord of the Rings more often uses “orcs,” though the terms are closely related in his fictional world.
The modern English word “orc” also has older Germanic associations, including words connected with monsters or demons. Tolkien’s philological imagination often began with a historical word and expanded it into a complete fictional culture, history, and mythology.