Etymograph

English

bola

Bola comes from Portuguese bola ‘ball, sphere, round object’, and goes back to Latin bulla ‘a bubble’.

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEbulla1‘a bubble’
  2. Spanishc. 1500–presentbola1‘ball’
  3. Portuguesec. 1500–presentbola1‘ball, sphere, round object’
  4. Englishtodaybola1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English bola

Earlier history uncertain. See Wiktionary.

Lineage

  1. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEbullaWiktionary, English bola‘a bubble’
  2. Spanishc. 1500–presentbolaWiktionary, English bola‘ball’
  3. Portuguesec. 1500–presentbolaWiktionary, English bola‘ball, sphere, round object’
  4. EnglishtodaybolaWiktionary, English bola

first attested First attested in 1818 (as stated in Wiktionary’s etymology)

The story

First attested in 1818.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- ‘to sound’

ball, bell, bald, flame, bale, blush, blur, blizzard, bleach, bold, blaze, sabha, blemish, bolster, phlegm, buller, phallus, blithe, phlox, ebullient, bleat, blain, 70 more

through Latin bulla ‘a bubble’

bill, bull, bowl, boil, budge, bouillon, 15 more

through Spanish bola ‘ball’

bolero

Today it means

noun A throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of a cord.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “bola”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Latin bulla / bola

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