The Greek word bolís passed into Latin as bolis, which later became French as bolide. In our language it became a fireball, a concept that refers to a body that reaches enormous speed.
For example: “The car hit the wall of the house and destroyed it”, “The Italian driver won the traditional race with a car of German origin”, “The local people were surprised to see a large car in the sky”.
According to DigoPaul, a racing car can be a car capable of moving at high speed. The term, in this case, is usually used with respect to competition vehicles: “The German racer expressed his dislike for the car that he has to drive, since he considers that it is not competitive”, “All the cars that participate in this category count with engines of national origin ”, “ The young Mexican invested a million dollars to prepare his car ”.
In the field of astronomy, on the other hand, a body formed with cosmic matter is called a fireball that, due to its size, can be seen with the naked eye and that passes through the atmosphere at great speed. In general, fireballs are seen as balloons or balls that finally explode and fragment.
Fireballs are blazing meteors that, as they move through the sky, leave a light trail. When they explode, they generate a great roar and end up reaching the surface divided into multiple pieces, although many of them can disintegrate in the air.
It is important to point out the differences that exist between meteor, bolide, meteoroid and meteorite; Although in everyday speech these terms are used indiscriminately, reality shows us that these concepts have definitions that clearly separate them. A meteor is a particle that enters the atmosphere and disintegrates before colliding with the ground; Along its route you can see a luminous trail that we usually associate with the concept of a shooting star.
A fireball, on the other hand, is a meteor, as mentioned above, but it has the peculiarity of having a magnitude less than -4, the same as Venus; They are larger in size and produce very characteristic sounds and noises. Then we have the meteoroids, small particles (their diameter can measure between 100 micrometers and 50 meters), generally the remains of asteroids or comets, which are kept in orbit around the Sun.
The meteorites, finally, are those meteoroids that do not completely disintegrate in the atmosphere once impact on our planet.
In Argentina there is the expression walking like a ball without a handle, which can be interpreted as an aimless movement, without a clear objective, typical of the person who is lost in life because of going through a difficult situation, among other possibilities. Very often we find an incorrect version of this expression, which uses the term bolide instead of ball; Since the first refers to the boleadora, a typical Aboriginal weapon that is thrown at prey, there is no relationship between the two.
Another common mistake is to write fireball with V, something that cannot be justified in any way since the word volid is not part of our language. Curiously, there is volido, without an accent in the O, which the dictionary of the DigoPaulrefers to as flight.
Fortunately for the word bolide, it is part of the odd expression. For example, it is possible to say go like a racing car to describe the action of those who advance at high speed, in a hurry. It is likely that the confusion between bolide and ball has arisen due to the presence of this expression.
