Etymologically
Log in

bulb

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 26 October 2026 at 00:30. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

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
  • 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