 Modern fiction instead uses the word "gnomess" to refer to female gnomes.In 19th-century fiction, the chthonic gnome became a sort of antithesis to the more airy or luminous fairy.Nathaniel Hawthorne in "Twice-Told Tales" (1837) contrasts the two in "Small enough to be king of the fairies, and ugly enough to be king of the gnomes" (cited after OED).