bulb

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin bulbus (“bulb, bulbous root, onion”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Ancient Greek βολβός (bolbós, “bulbous plant, onion”).^{[2][3][5][7][8]} Etymonline takes it through Middle French bulbe, recorded from the 15th century, and Barnhart says perhaps so,^[3][4] while the OED takes it straight from Latin, comparing the French word.^[2] The OED and Klein describe the Greek word as a reduplicated expressive formation;^[2][9] Barnhart, Partridge and Weekley think it possibly related to bulla (“bubble”), the source of bull² (a papal edict), but Klein thinks it probably not.^{[4][10][11][9]} Latin bulbus was already used in Old English texts as the name of plants grown from bulbs.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A rounded swollen structure at the base of the stem of certain plants: about 1440, in an English translation of Palladius on farming.^[2][12] Barnhart and Etymonline date the word from 1568 and the 1560s in the sense "onion",^[4][3] which Ayto calls its original English meaning.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline dates to the 1660s the extension to the round underground part of an onion, lily and similar plants;^[3] a bulb was also the whole plant grown from one, from 1601.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a round body, or root" and quoted it of the ball of the eye.^[14] The word was then applied to rounded parts of the body (1678) and of other things:^[2] the round end of a glass tube, as in a thermometer, from 1735,^[2] which Barnhart and Etymonline place around 1800.^[4][3] The electric light bulb grew out of this sense;^[13] Barnhart dates electric bulb to 1856 and Ayto the light-bulb sense to the 1850s,^[4][13] while the OED's first quotation for a bulb with a glowing filament is from 1879.^[2] The verb, "to swell into a round shape", is recorded from 1681, and of plants, "to form bulbs", from 1731.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1440 – rounded underground structure of a plant.^[2]
• 1568 – an onion.^[4][3]
• 1601 – a plant growing from a bulb.^[2]
• 1678 – a rounded structure in the body.^[2]
• 1681 – verb, to swell into a rounded shape.^[2]
• 1735 – rounded expansion of a glass tube, as of a thermometer.^[2]
• 1856 – electric bulb.^[4]
• 1879 – glass bulb with a filament giving electric light.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rounded underground bud made of a short stem wrapped in fleshy leaves, from which plants such as the tulip and onion grow; compare corm.^[15][7][2]
2. A plant that grows from a bulb, such as a daffodil.^[15][2]
3. A light bulb.^[15][2]
4. A rounded part or swelling of something, such as the end of a thermometer or a structure in the body.^[15][7][2]
5. A rounded hollow rubber container squeezed to expel air.^[2]

Verb

1. To swell into a rounded shape.^[7][2]
2. Of a plant, to form bulbs: The leeks bulbed late this year.^[7][2]

Word family

• bulbed
• bulbless
• bulbar
• bulblet
• pseudobulb
• flashbulb
• light bulb
• dim bulb

Related words

• bulbiferous
• bulbil
• bulbous
• bull²

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins