A marble is a small ball. It is hard. It is used in games. People used to make them from marble chips. That's how they got their name.

Marbles come from long ago. Ancient games were played with round pebbles, nuts, or fruit pits. The young Octavian played games with nut marbles. He later became the Roman emperor, Augustus. We have also found engraved marbles from sites of early Native American tribes.