Balloon vs. Bubble — What's the Difference?

A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g.

A thin, usually spherical or hemispherical film of liquid filled with air or gas

A small coloured rubber bag which is inflated with air and then sealed at the neck, used as a child's toy or a decoration

A globular body of air or gas formed within a liquid

A large bag filled with hot air or gas to make it rise in the air, typically one carrying a basket for passengers

A pocket formed in a solid by air or gas that is trapped, as during cooling or hardening.

A rounded outline in which the words or thoughts of characters in a comic strip or cartoon are written

The sound made by the forming and bursting of bubbles.

A large rounded drinking glass, used especially for brandy

Something insubstantial, groundless, or ephemeral, especially a fantastic or impracticable idea or belief

A stupid person.

Something light or effervescent

Swell out in a spherical shape

A usually transparent glass or plastic dome.

(with reference to a ball) lob or be lobbed high in the air

A protective, often isolating envelope or cover

Travel by hot-air balloon

A usually oval outline, as on a ballot or a standardized test form, intended to be filled in using a pencil or pen.

A flexible bag designed to be inflated with hot air or with a gas, such as helium, that is lighter than the surrounding air, causing it to rise and float in the atmosphere.

A rounded or irregularly shaped outline, as in a cartoon or other drawing, containing a character's speech or thoughts, as represented by words or pictures.

Such a bag with sufficient capacity to lift and transport a suspended gondola or other load.

(Economics) An increase in the price of a commodity, investment, or market that is not warranted by economic fundamentals and is usually caused by ongoing investment or speculation in the expectation that the price will increase further.

Such a bag shaped like a figure or object when inflated; an inflatable.

To form or give off bubbles

A usually round or oblong inflatable rubber bag used as a toy or decoration.

To move or flow with a gurgling sound

(Medicine) An inflatable device that is inserted into a body cavity or structure and distended with air or gas for therapeutic purposes, such as angioplasty.

To rise to the surface

See speech bubble.

To become active or intense enough to come into prominence

See thought bubble.

To display irrepressible activity or emotion

A balloon payment.

Capable of being categorized in one class or another; borderline

To ascend or ride in a balloon.

A spherically contained volume of air or other gas, especially one made from soapy liquid.

To expand or swell out like a balloon.

A small spherical cavity in a solid material.

To increase or rise quickly

(by extension) Anything resembling a hollow sphere.

To cause to expand by or as if by inflating

(figurative) Anything lacking firmness or solidity; a cheat or fraud; an empty project.

Suggestive of a balloon, as in shape

(economics) A period of intense speculation in a market, causing prices to rise quickly to irrational levels as the metaphorical bubble expands, and then fall even more quickly as the bubble bursts.

An inflatable buoyant object, often (but not necessarily) round and flexible.

(figurative) The emotional and/or physical atmosphere in which the subject is immersed.

Such an object as a child’s toy or party decoration.

An officer's station in a prison dormitory, affording views on all sides.

Such an object designed to transport people or equipment through the air.

(obsolete) Someone who has been ‘bubbled’ or fooled; a dupe.

(medicine) A sac inserted into part of the body for therapeutic reasons; such as angioplasty.

A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.

A speech bubble.

The globule of air in the chamber of a spirit level.

A type of glass cup, sometimes used for brandy.

(Cockney rhyming slang) A laugh.

(architecture) A ball or globe on the top of a pillar, church, etc.

(Cockney rhyming slang) A Greek.

(chemistry) A round vessel, usually with a short neck, to hold or receive whatever is distilled; a glass vessel of a spherical form.

Any of the small magnetized areas that make up bubble memory.

(pyrotechnics) A bomb or shell.

(poker) The point in a poker tournament when the last player without a prize loses all their chips and leaves the game, leaving only players that are going to win prizes. (e.g., if the last remaining 9 players win prizes, then the point when the 10th player leaves the tournament)

(obsolete) A game played with a large inflated ball.

A group of people who are in quarantine together.

(engraving) The outline enclosing words represented as coming from the mouth of a pictured figure.

A bulb or lamp; the part of a lighting assembly that actually produces the light.

(slang) A woman's breast.

(intransitive) To produce bubbles, to rise up in bubbles (such as in foods cooking or liquids boiling).

(slang) A small container for illicit drugs made from a condom or the finger of a latex glove, etc.

To churn or foment, as if wishing to rise to the surface.

(finance) balloon payment

To rise through a medium or system, similar to the way that bubbles rise in liquid.

(intransitive) To increase or expand rapidly.

To cheat, delude.

(intransitive) To go up or voyage in a balloon.

To cry, weep.

(transitive) To take up in, or as if in, a balloon.

(transitive) To pat a baby on the back so as to cause it to belch.

(transitive) To inflate like a balloon.

(transitive) To cause to feel as if bubbling or churning.

To strike (a ball) so that it flies high in the air.

(transitive) To express in a bubbly or lively manner.

(aviation) Of an aircraft: to plunge alternately up and down.

(transitive) To form into a protruding round shape.

A bag made of silk or other light material, and filled with hydrogen gas or heated air, so as to rise and float in the atmosphere; especially, one with a car attached for aërial navigation.

(transitive) To cover with bubbles.

A ball or globe on the top of a pillar, church, etc., as at St. Paul's, in London.

(transitive) To bubble in; to mark a response on a form by filling in a circular area (‘bubble’).

A round vessel, usually with a short neck, to hold or receive whatever is distilled; a glass vessel of a spherical form.

(intransitive) To join together in a support bubble

A bomb or shell.

A thin film of liquid inflated with air or gas; as, a soap bubble; bubbles on the surface of a river.

A game played with a large inflated ball.

A small quantity of air or gas within a liquid body; as, bubbles rising in champagne or aërated waters.

The outline inclosing words represented as coming from the mouth of a pictured figure.

A globule of air, or globular vacuum, in a transparent solid; as, bubbles in window glass, or in a lens.

To take up in, or as if in, a balloon.

A small, hollow, floating bead or globe, formerly used for testing the strength of spirits.

To go up or voyage in a balloon.

The globule of air in the spirit tube of a level.

To expand, or puff out, like a balloon.

Anything that wants firmness or solidity; that which is more specious than real; a false show; a cheat or fraud; a delusive scheme; an empty project; a dishonest speculation; as, the South Sea bubble.

Small thin inflatable rubber bag with narrow neck

A person deceived by an empty project; a gull.

Large tough non-rigid bag filled with gas or heated air

To rise in bubbles, as liquids when boiling or agitated; to contain bubbles.

Ride in a hot-air balloon;

To run with a gurgling noise, as if forming bubbles; as, a bubbling stream.

Become inflated;

To sing with a gurgling or warbling sound.

A hollow globule of gas (e.g., air or carbon dioxide)

A speculative scheme that depends on unstable factors that the planner cannot control;

An impracticable and illusory idea;

A dome-shaped covering made of transparent glass or plastic

Form, produce, or emit bubbles;

Flow in an irregular current with a bubbling noise;

Expel gas from the stomach;