Balls

How to spell balls

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce balls

What does balls mean?

1. nounRound objects used in games, or any small spherical things.

Balls in a sentence

• The children left their tennis balls scattered across the court.

• She rolled the dough into small balls before baking.

Where does balls come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This is the plural of 'ball', a word that traces back to the Old Norse 'böllr', meaning a round object or a sphere, which is closely related to the Old English 'beallu' and the broader Germanic family of words for swelling, rounded things. The same root also feeds into related Germanic words and is connected to Latin 'follis', meaning a leather bag or bellows, which shows how the idea of something swollen and rounded sits at the heart of the family. In English the singular 'ball' for a spherical plaything is recorded from the 1200s, with the plural 'balls' following naturally. From the late nineteenth century the plural also picked up vulgar and figurative senses for courage or nerve, an extension of the slang anatomical meaning. The doubled 'l' is the only spelling point worth watching, and it mirrors the doubled consonant in the singular form.

How the word is built

• ball (round object, from Old Norse böllr)
• -s (plural)