The French term for a hot-air balloon is “Montgolfière.”
The word honors Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, the French brothers whose experiments led to the first practical hot-air balloons. In French, “montgolfière” specifically identifies a balloon lifted by heated air, distinguishing it from a gas balloon, which is filled with hydrogen or helium.
The term spread through European ballooning vocabulary because France was the center of early balloon development in the late eighteenth century. It also appears in historical names, museums, competitions and descriptions of traditional balloon flights.
A Montgolfière should not be confused with a Charlière. A Charlière is a gas balloon named after Jacques Charles, who developed the hydrogen-balloon design in 1783. Both are lighter-than-air craft, but they obtain lift through different physical methods.