globule (n.)

late 14c., "a large mass;" mid-15c., "spherical solid body, a sphere," from Old French globe (14c.) and directly from Latin globus "round mass, sphere, ball" (also, of men, "a throng, crowd, body, mass"), which is related to gleba "clod, lump of soil" (see glebe) and perhaps also to glomus "a ball, ball of yarn."

Sense of "the planet earth," also "map of the earth or sky drawn on the surface of an artificial sphere" are attested from 1550s. Meaning "globe-shaped glass vessel" is from 1660s. "A globe is often solid, a sphere often hollow. The secondary senses of globe are physical; those of sphere are moral." [Century Dictionary].