It would seem to me that the most sensible interpretation of Appendix F on Black
Speech/Orkish is that the suffix _-hai_ is a group-plural, analagous to S.
_-hoth_: e.g. _Uruk-hai_ = 'the host of the (soldier-)Orcs.'

But some writers have suggested that it has some other signification; this
position is usually
advanced in connection with the idea that "_Uruk-hai_" is applicable solely to
Saruman's hybrids, not to Uruks as a whole. By analogy with _Olog-hai_, I
suppose, it could be read as some sort of intensifier i.e. 'super-Orcs,
super-Trolls.'

To anyone's knowledge, did JRRT have anything more to say on this than appears
in App F and its drafts?

-- William Hicklin

[In the newly-published _Parma Eldalamberon_ 17, containing Tolkien's own notes
on "Words, Phrases & Passages in _The Lord of the Rings_", we find (p. 12)
Tolkien's gloss: "_Uruk-hai_ 'Orc-folk'". This shows that (at least at the time
Tolkien made this gloss) _-hai_ was indeed a collective term meaning 'folk', not
an intensifier. CFH]