ARE YOU A MUGGLE?

In the fictional world of J. K. Rowling's book series Harry Potter, a muggle is a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born into the magical world. Muggles also do not have any magical blood. It differs from the term Squib, which refers to a person with one or more magical parents yet without any magical ability, and from the term Muggle-born (or the more offensive mudblood), which refers to a person with magical abilities but without magical parents.

In the Harry Potter books, non-magical people are often portrayed as foolish, sometimes befuddled characters who are completely ignorant of the Wizarding world that exists in their midst. If, by unfortunate means, non-magical people do happen to observe the working of magic, the Ministry of Magic sends Obliviators to cast Memory Charms upon them—causing them to forget the event.

Some Muggles, however, know of the wizarding world. These include Muggle parents of magical children, such as Hermione Granger's parents, the Muggle Prime Minister (and his predecessors), the Dursley family (Harry Potter's non-magical and only living relatives), and the non-magical spouses of some witches and wizards.

Rowling has said she created the word "Muggle" from "mug", an English term for someone who is easily fooled. She added the "-gle" to make it sound less demeaning and more "cuddly".

A 'muggle' is, according to Abbott Walter Bower, the author of the Scotichronicon, "an Englishman's tail". In Alistair Moffat's book, A History of the Borders from Early Times it is stated that there was a widely held 13th century belief amongst Scots that Englishmen had tails.