בּוּל (bul) — stamp; bullseye; log of wood

Etymology

The word בּוּל is a fascinating case of polysemy — a single phonetic form that carries three historically unrelated meanings, each with its own distinct etymology reaching into different ancient and modern sources.

Log of wood (בּוּל עֵץ). This usage appears once in the Bible, in Isaiah 44:19: "before a log of wood I bow down." The word is not Hebrew in origin — it is borrowed from Akkadian bullu, meaning a chunk of dry wood. Interestingly, Akkadian had a near-homophone bûlu (with a longer vowel on the initial syllable) meaning "wild animals," and this word also found its way into the Bible, in Job 40:20: "For the mountains bring him their produce, where all the wild animals of the field play." The verse closely parallels a line in the Babylonian legend "Nisaba and Wheat": "Bul of the field, the wild animals praise its greatness." Traditional commentators, unaware of Akkadian, mistakenly interpreted this bul as a truncated form of the Hebrew yevul (produce/yield). Only after Akkadian was deciphered in the mid-19th century could scholars recognize the borrowing.

The month of Bul. The Bible records an ancient Hebrew name for the eighth month: "In the month of Bul, which is the eighth month" (I Kings 6:38). Like all the original Hebrew month names, this was replaced by a Babylonian name during the Exile — in this case by the Akkadian "Warhu-shamnu" (eighth month), which became Cheshvan. The Hebrew name Bul derives from the root ב-ו-ל meaning "to pour out water," a root that survives only in מַבּוּל (flood/deluge) in Hebrew, though the cognate root is alive in Arabic where it means "to urinate."

Postage stamp. The world's first postage stamp was issued in England in 1840, but the Hebrew word for it traces back to ancient Greece. The Greeks used copper rods as currency; the word for a rod was ὀβελός (obelós), and for the coin derived from it, ὀβολός (obolos). Six oboli made one handful (δραχμή, drachma). When Greek coins spread through the ancient world, the names spread with them. In Aramaic the Greek term became pulsa, meaning small copper coins; in Persian (possibly through Aramaic), it became pul — the Persian word for money to this day. The Ottoman Empire adopted pul for a coin of small value; when the Ottomans issued their first stamp in 1863, they used the word pul for the new item. The word spread through the Empire, including to the Levant, but in Palestinian Arabic (as in many Arabic dialects), the letter p becomes b — so Ben-Yehuda encountered the word as bul. He introduced it into Hebrew in 1891 in his newspaper HaOr: "Forged 'bulim' (stamps pasted on notices and newspapers) have been found, and therefore the government will mint new ones in a new form."

Bullseye / exactly. The fourth sense of בּוּל — a precise hit on a target, or simply "exactly" — has an entirely different pedigree. In 17th-century French Baroque architecture, small round windows were fashionable; these were called œil-de-bœuf ("bull's eye"). By the late 18th century English speakers adopted "Bull's Eye" for round porthole openings in ships; by the early 19th century the term extended to the central circle of an archery target. By the mid-19th century "bullseye" meant a perfect shot. British soldiers and administrators brought this term to Palestine after capturing it from the Ottomans in World War I, and during the Mandate period the English "bullseye" was naturalized into the existing Hebrew word בּוּל.

Key Quotes

"לְבוּל עֵץ אֶסְגּוֹד" — ישעיהו מ״ד, י״ט

"בְּיֶרַח בּוּל הוּא הַחֹדֶשׁ הַשְּׁמִינִי" — מלכים א׳ ו׳, ל״ח

"נמצאו 'בולים' (חותמות שמדביקים על המודעות וה'עתונים') מזיפים, ועל כן תטבע הממשלה חדשים בצורה חדשה" — אליעזר בן-יהודה, "האור," 1891

Timeline

• ~8th century BCE: בּוּל appears in Isaiah 44:19 (log of wood) and I Kings 6:38 (month name)
• Pre-exile: Month of Bul is the Hebrew name for Cheshvan (eighth month)
• During Babylonian Exile: Hebrew month names replaced by Babylonian/Akkadian names; Bul → Cheshvan
• Ancient Greece: obolos → coin name → spreads through Near East
• Aramaic: Greek obolos → pulsa (small copper coins)
• Persian: pulsa → pul (money, still used today)
• 13th century CE: Turkish borrows pul for a small-value coin
• 1840: World's first postage stamp issued in England
• 1863: Ottoman Empire issues first stamp; pul used as the term
• 1891: Ben-Yehuda introduces "bul" (from Ottoman bul/pul) for postage stamp in HaOr
• Late 17th century: French œil-de-bœuf → English "Bull's Eye" (architectural term)
• Mid-19th century: "Bullseye" = perfect shot in English
• British Mandate period: English "bullseye" assimilated to Hebrew בּוּל (bullseye/exactly)

Related Words

• מַבּוּל — flood; from root ב-ו-ל (connected to the month-name sense)
• חֶשְׁוָן — the month of Cheshvan (replaced the biblical Bul)
• פּוּל — the Persian/Turkish word for money (same origin as the stamp sense)
• אוֹבּוֹלוֹס — Greek obolos (the ancient source of the stamp-sense etymology)