Ball

How to spell ball

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ball

What does ball mean?

1. nounA round or spherical object, especially one used in a game or sport.
2. nounA large formal social gathering for dancing.

Ball in a sentence

• The striker kicked the ball past the goalkeeper.

• The charity hosted a glittering ball at the town hall.

• She rolled the ball across the bowling lane.

• Guests wore evening gowns to the annual ball.

Where does ball come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word entered English from the Old Norse böllr, meaning a round object or globe, and it is closely tied to the Old English bealluc and to Germanic relatives that all described something spherical. By the time it settled into Middle English it meant any round body, from a child's plaything to the rounded part of the foot. The sporting sense, a round object thrown, kicked, or struck in games, has been with it for many centuries. Curiously, the dancing sense of ball, a formal social gathering, comes from a completely different source: the Late Latin ballare, meaning to dance, by way of French bal, so two unrelated histories collapsed onto the same spelling. The short, simple spelling makes the word easy, but it shares its sound with bawl, meaning to weep or shout, which is the only real trap.

How the word is built

• ball (single root; from Old Norse böllr meaning a round object)