Other forms: balloons, ballooning, ballooned
A balloon is a rubber ball full of air that floats at parties. Blow up a balloon, a burst balloon, balloons on strings.
The floating kind holds helium, which is lighter than air and is a genuinely finite resource, mostly a by-product of natural gas. A hot air balloon rises because the heated air inside is thinner than the air outside. As a verb, to balloon means to swell suddenly — costs ballooned.
1nounballoonA rubber bag filled with air or gas.
“The children blew up balloons and hung them around the room for the party.”
2verbswellTo swell suddenly.
“The cost of the new stadium ballooned far beyond the original budget.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
balloon is an inflated object.
Italian pallone means a large ball, from palla, a ball, from a Germanic root. The word came through French.
Middle French
ballon
Italian
pallone
English, today
balloon
Built from
Borrowed from Italian pallone. First use appears c. 1591, "a game played with a large, inflated leather ball" (possibly via Middle French ballon) from Italian pallone (“large ball”) from palla (“ball”), from lng palla. The Northern Italian form, balla (“ball-shaped bundle”), today a doublet, likely derived from Old French balle, from Frankish ballu (“ball”), and may have influenced the spelling of this word. Both Germanic words are from Proto-Germanic ballô (“ball”), balluz, from Proto-Indo-European bʰoln- (“bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰel- (“to blow, swell, inflate”). Akin to Old High German ballo, bal (“ball”), (German Ballen (“bale”); Ball "ball"). a doublet of ballon. More at ball.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA