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A ball is a round, usually spherical but sometimes ovoid, object with various uses. It is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. In the context of sports, "ball" need not refer to a spherical object, as is the case in American football. Balls can also be used for simpler activities, such as catch, marbles and juggling. Balls made from hard-wearing materials are used in engineering applications to provide very low friction bearings, known as ball bearings. Black-powder weapons use stone and metal balls as projectiles. Although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus. The Spanish were the first Europeans to see bouncing rubber balls (albeit solid and not inflated) which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame. Balls used in various sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were made from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials. As balls are one of the most familiar spherical objects to humans, the word "ball" is used to refer to, or to describe, anything spherical or near-spherical. == Etymology == 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 ''ラテン語:Laȝamon's Brut, or Chronicle of Britain'' in the phrase, "ラテン語:Summe heo driuen balles wide ȝeond Þa feldes." 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. In Ancient Greek the word πάλλα (''palla'') for "ball" is attested〔(πάλλα ), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus〕 besides the word "σφαίρα", ''sphere''.〔(σφαίρα ), Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, ''A Greek-English Lexicon'', on Perseus〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「ball」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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