The English word “bullet” ultimately goes back to the Latin word bulla , which literally means “round thing” or “swelling/knob.”

Quick Scoop: Where “bullet” comes from

  • Latin bulla meant a round swelling, knob, or ball-like object.
  • Old French took this as boule (“ball”), then boulette (“small ball” or “cannonball”).
  • English borrowed bullet from French boulette , keeping the idea of a small round object , which later became specifically the projectile fired from a gun.

So if you’re asking “what does bullet mean in Latin,” the closest answer is not that Latin had a word bullet , but that the Latin bulla is its ancestor, with the sense of a round, swollen, knob-like thing , which then evolved through French into the modern word “bullet.”

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.