Translation
broom
Word origin
Built inside Esperanto from balai, to sweep, plus -il-, the tool suffix. Balai is French balayer, from Old French balai, a besom, which is generally traced to a Gaulish or Breton word for the broom plant. English borrowed the same French verb much later for balayage, the hairdressing technique.
- Origin
- Esperanto derivation on a French root
- Root
- balai + -il-
- English cognates
- balayage
Examples
.
The broom stands behind the door.
.
She took the broom out of the cupboard.
.
The new broom is better than the old one.
Decode it. Balai, which arrives at rank 2,876 in the last chapter, is the verb to sweep. -- is the tool suffix, one of the most reliable in the language: the tool for doing X is X-. So is the sweeping-tool, the broom. You have met the pattern already in o (a comb, from , to comb), o (a knife, from , to cut), (a key, from , to lock) and (cutlery, the collection of eating-tools). Once -- is in your hands, a large slice of the household vocabulary stops being vocabulary.
Watch the double vowel. The root ends in -ai and the suffix begins with -, so the word is -a-i-l-o, four syllables, with the a and the i pronounced separately: ba--i-lo. It is not a diphthong, and it is not ŭ. Learners who have just internalised as one sound routinely compress this one by mistake.
The rest of the cleaning cupboard. is to sweep the floor; o is the sweepings, the dust and rubbish you gather up; o is a road sweeper; and forbalai is to sweep away, used as freely in the figurative sense as English does with a government or an objection.
And the flying kind. Esperanto keeps the same word for the witch's broomstick, so o needs no special term. Balailtenilo exists if you really need the handle by itself, though is what anyone would actually say.
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balailo: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Esperanto word "balailo" (broom): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 48.