Quenya name for the third tribe of Elves (PM/318), usually appearing in the plural form Teleri (S/40; WJ/382). It was derived from the root √TELES “come at rear” (PE18/84; Ety/TELES), because “they tarried on the road and were not wholly of a mind to pass from the dusk to the light of Valinor” (S/53).
Conceptual Development: A similar name ᴱQ. Telelli appeared in the earliest Lost Tales, and its singular form ᴱQ. Telelle was glossed “little elf” in the Qenya Lexicon (QL/91). This early term applied to young Elves of all tribes, especially those talented in song (PE13/99; PE14/9). The related term ᴱQ. Teleri, however, referred specifically to the first tribe of Elves (LT1/50; PE14/9).
By the earliest drafts of the Silmarillion, however, Tolkien began to use ᴹQ. Teler as the term for the “Sea-elves”, the third tribe (SM/13). In The Etymologies from the 1930s, the name was given the derivation above (Ety/TELES), though initially it was because the third tribe “were the latest to awaken” (LR/168), not because they tarried on the march.
Teler noun "sea-elf", pl. Teleri, general (partitive) pl. Telelli, the third tribe of the Eldar (TELES (MIS) ), also called Lindar.Teleri means "those at the end of the line, the hindmost", (WJ:382 cf. 371), derived from the stem tel- "finish, end, be last" (SA:tel-). The Lindar were so called because they lagged behind on the march from Cuiviénen. In early "Qenya", Teler, also Telellë, was defined "little elf" (LT1:267), but this is hardly a valid gloss in Tolkien's later Quenya.