late 14c., "a large mass;" mid-15c., "spherical solid body, a sphere," from Middle 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 glomus "a ball, ball of yarn," but de Vaan says the last two probably are non-IE loan-words. 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"].