Etymology: Common Germanic: Old English balu , bealu , (genitive bealw-es ) = Old Saxon and Old Frisian balu , Old High German balo , Old Norse böl < Germanic *balw-o(m) , the neuter of the bale adj. adjective; compare evil, ill, good, as nouns. Almost confined to poetry from Old English downwards; in Middle English it seems to have derived fresh vitality from the Old Norse böl, pronounced /bɔl/, whence also its alliterative use with bote ‘remedy, relief,’ and bete ‘to relieve.’ More of English origin, perhaps, is its alliterative opposition to bliss. Marked obsolete in dictionaries soon after 1600, and rare thence to the 19th cent., when its undefined vague sense of evil made it a favourite word with the poets.

Etymology: Common Germanic, though known only in Old English bǽl and Old Norse bál great fire, blazing pile, funeral pyre < Germanic bāl-o(m) , cognate with Sanskrit bhālas lustre, Greek ϕαλός shining, bright. In Middle English and modern English almost exclusively northern, and apparently < Old Norse bál rather than Old English bǽl , which would have given modern beal , beel . By later writers much mixed up with bale n.¹: see 3. Compare also bale-fire n.

Etymology: Middle English bale , perhaps < Old French bale, balle, = Provençal bala , Spanish bala , Italian balla , palla , medieval Latin bala , balla , ‘ball’ and ‘rounded package,’ generally taken to be an adoption of Old High German balla , palla , ball (ball n.¹); though some refer it to Greek πάλλα ball. But the English may be immediately < Flemish bale (modern Dutch baal) ‘bale,’ itself adopted < French or other Romanic language. Bale and ball have from the first been distinct in English, though ball (for French balle) is occasional in this sense in 17–18th cent.

Etymology: Common Germanic; = Gothic balws (in compounds, as balwa-wesei wickedness, balwjan to plague, torment, balweins torment) < Germanic *balw-oz.

Etymology: < Old French baler (since 16th cent. baller ) to dance (= Provençal balar , Italian ballare , Spanish bailar , Portuguese bailar ) < late Latin (Isidore) ballāre to dance. Some think the Latin formed < Greek βαλλίζειν to dance, some < balla ball n.¹, on the alleged ground that, in the Middle Ages, tennis was accompanied with dancing and song.

Etymology: < bale n.³

Etymology: Variant spelling of bail v.⁴