Gömbökkel

Gömbökkel is a Hungarian grammatical form meaning “with spheres” or “with balls.” It is the instrumental plural form of the noun gömb, which refers to a sphere or a ball.

Form and usage: The base plural of gömb is gömbök. To express the instrumental plural, Hungarian uses the suffix -kkal or -kkel; attached to gömbök this yields gömbökkel. The form aligns with general Hungarian rules for instrumental plurality, and the resulting word is used to describe objects or actions performed with spheres. For example, a phrase like a doboz tele gömbökkel means “the box is full of spheres,” and a sentence such as a játék gömbökkel van díszítve means “the toy is decorated with spheres.”

Context: gömbökkel appears primarily in descriptive or spatial contexts, where the material, tools, or decorations involve spheres. It is a standard example of how Hungarian combines plural nouns with instrumental suffixes to express “with ….”

Etymology: The word combines gömbök (the plural of gömb, “spheres”) with the instrumental suffix -kkel, resulting in gömbökkel. This illustrates Hungarian’s pattern of forming instrumental plurals by appending -kkal/-kkel to the plural noun form, with assimilation producing the final -ökkel in this case.

See also: gömb, gömbök, instrumental case in Hungarian, Hungarian grammar.