Page "Ball" Paragraph 4

The first known use of the word ball in English in the sense of a globular body that is played with was in 1205 in in the phrase, "" The word came from the Middle English bal ( inflected as ball-e ,-es, in turn from Old Norse böllr ( pronounced ; compare Old Swedish baller, and Swedish boll ) from Proto-Germanic ballu-z, ( whence probably Middle High German bal, ball-es, Middle Dutch bal ), a cognate with Old High German ballo, pallo, Middle High German balle from Proto-Germanic * ballon ( weak masculine ), and Old High German ballâ, pallâ, Middle High German balle, Proto-Germanic * ballôn ( weak feminine ).

No Old English representative of any of these is known.

( The answering forms in Old English would have been beallu ,-a ,-e -- compare bealluc, ballock.

) If ball-was native in Germanic, it may have been a cognate with the Latin foll-is in sense of a " thing blown up or inflated.

" In the later Middle English spelling balle the word coincided graphically with the French balle " ball " and " bale " which has hence been erroneously assumed to be its source.

French balle ( but not boule ) is assumed to be of Germanic origin, itself, however.