 Other uses of the term "gnome" remain obscure until the early 19th century, when it is taken up by authors of Romanticist collections of fairy tales and becomes mostly synonymous with the older word "goblin".Pope's stated source, the French satire (by Nicolas-Pierre-Henri de Montfaucon de Villars, the abbot of Villars) "Comte de Gabalis" (1670) describes gnomes as such