Lull
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A period of rest or soothing.
- 2 a period of calm weather wordnet
- 3 A period of reduced activity; a respite.
- 4 a pause during which things are calm or activities are diminished wordnet
- 5 A period without waves or wind.
"[…] during the lull, wind shifted to S. E. […]"
Show 1 more definition
- 6 An extended pause between sets of waves.
"It is advisable to leave the surf zone during the lull between sets of larger waves, waiting outside the surf zone for a lull."
- 1 To cause to rest by soothing influences; to compose; to calm transitive
"To lull him soft a sleepe"
- 2 become quiet or less intensive wordnet
- 3 To become gradually calm; to subside; to cease or abate. intransitive
"The storm lulled."
- 4 calm by deception wordnet
- 5 make calm or still wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"There was a lull in the festivities as Fred was carted off to the infirmary by the emergency medical technicians."
Etymology
From Middle English lullen, lollen. Originally, perhaps expressive in origin from la-la-la or lu-lu-lu sounds made in calming a child. Compare Finnish laulaa (“to sing”) and Hiligaynon lala (“to sing a lullaby”). Cognate with Scots lul, lule, loll (“to lull, put to sleep, howl, caterwaul”), Dutch lollen (“to sing badly, caterwaul”), Dutch lullen (“to chatter, prate, cheat, deceive”), Low German lullen (“to lull”), German lullen (“to lull”), Danish lulle (“to lull, sing to sleep”), Swedish lulla (“to lull”), Icelandic lúlla (“to lull”).
* As a German surname, from personal names based on Leute (“people, population”). * As a Catalan surname, spelling variant of Llull.
Related phrases
More for "lull"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.