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bilă
ball (small sphere), marble /ˈbi.lə/
noun#2736 most common
Also: ball bearing (as in "bilă de rulment"), voting token ("bilă albă/neagră")
Example sentences
Copilul are o bilă roșie.
The child has a red ball.
Bila se rostogolește pe masă.
The ball rolls on the table.
Am pierdut bila albastră în curte.
I lost the blue marble in the yard.
Rulmentul are bile de oțel foarte precise.
The bearing has very precise steel balls.
La vot, fiecare membru a pus o bilă albă în urnă.
During the vote, each member dropped a white ball into the urn.
A primit bilă neagră din partea comisiei, ceea ce i-a blocat candidatura.
He got blackballed by the committee, which blocked his candidacy.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | bilă | bile |
| Genitive | bilei | bilelor |
| Accusative | bilă | bile |
| Vocative | bilo | bilelor |
Word family
biluțălittle ball, marble (diminutive)
biliardbilliards
bilă neagrăblackball, veto
rulment cu bileball bearing
Etymology
Romanian borrowed "bilă" from French "bille", which meant a small ball or marble and was also the token dropped into an urn during a vote. That voting sense survives in the Romanian idiom "a da bilă neagră", to blackball someone. The word entered Romanian in the 19th century alongside other French vocabulary tied to games and modern institutions.
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