Etymograph

English

pulla

Pulla comes from Finnish pulla ‘cardamom bread, pulla’, from Old Swedish bulle ‘small round drinking cup’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- ‘to sound’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰel-1‘to sound’root named by Wiktionary · steps between not traced
  2. Old Norsec. 800–1350bolli2
  3. Old Swedishmodernbulle2‘small round drinking cup’
  4. Swedishmodernbulle1‘a bun, a small bread roll’
  5. Finnishmodernpulla1‘cardamom bread, pulla’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1986pulla1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English pulla
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Swedish bulle
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1986, Melissa Ladenheim: “Then we would all have coffee and pulla bread,"…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰel-Wiktionary, English pulla‘to sound’root named by Wiktionary · steps between not traced
  2. Old Norsec. 800–1350bolliWiktionary, Swedish bulle
  3. Old SwedishmodernbulleWiktionary, Swedish bulle‘small round drinking cup’
  4. SwedishmodernbulleWiktionary, English pulla‘a bun, a small bread roll’
  5. FinnishmodernpullaWiktionary, English pulla‘cardamom bread, pulla’
  6. Englishearliest quotation 1986pullaWiktionary, English pulla. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1986, Melissa Ladenheim: “Then we would all have coffee and pulla bread,"…”

Linked words

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

ball, bowl, bold, bell, bald, boil, flame, bull, bale, blush, blur, blizzard, bleach, blaze, bolster, budge, sabha, blemish, phlegm, bolero, blithe, phlox, bola, phallus, bleat, blain, 71 more

Today it means

noun A sweet, leavened baked good made of wheat and flavored with crushed cardamom, resembling very soft bread in consistency, eaten in Finland.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “pulla”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Swedish bulle. 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 / Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- / pulla

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