: Tolkien liked to use such terms as "hosts" and "companies" to describe the populations of peoples: he didn't have our modern thing for precise numbering. But I wonder how imprecise he really was. Hosts and companies are traditional terms. There probably was a range of numbers for a host during the times that term was in use to describe organized (more or less) groups of warriors. Tolkien, always careful in his use of words, wouldn't grossly violate such a range, and from that we can get an idea of how amny elves were in the hosts of the first age and so forth.

Tolkien was imprecise when it come to the numbers. He shouldn't be faulted for this, because he was following the style used in the sagas. Think of the other vague terms, party or band or hoard, that have been used to describe an the number of people.

There was a good reason for this style. No one counted heads prior to, or after, a battle or kept accurate records. Many ancient and medieval writers went a step further and inflated the number of troops. This was usually done to show the side the writer favored in a better light.

I think the term host was used to describe very large number, perhaps of army size. The use of company is, IMO, even more vague. A company could be anything from a very small group, like the fellowship, or it could describe a commander with a small or large number of men.
~Aelmer