loll
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 6 January 2026
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 6, 2026 is:
loll • \LAHL\ • verb
Loll most often means “to droop or hang loosely.” It can also mean “to act or move in a relaxed or lazy manner.”
// We’re counting down the days until the weather will be warm enough again to laze and loll by the pool.
Examples:
“Just across the highway at Año Nuevo State Park, elephant seals loll lazily on the beach.” — Scott Clark, quoted in Saveur, 3 Apr. 2025
Did you know?
Despite appearances, loll isn’t an exaggerated version of the abbreviation LOL. It isn’t even related to laughing. Instead, it is about hanging out, both literally and figuratively. Like another relaxing verb, lull (“to cause to rest or sleep”), it probably originated as an imitation of the soft sounds people make when resting or trying to soothe someone else to sleep. In addition to meaning “to hang loosely,” as in “a dog with its tongue lolling out,” loll shares meaning with a number of l verbs that are all about taking it easy, including loaf, lounge, and laze.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Merriam Webster's Word of the Day for January 6th. |
| 0:10.0 | Today's word is lull, spelled L-O-L-L. L-L is a verb. |
| 0:18.0 | It most often means to droop or hang loosely. It can also mean to act or move in a relaxed |
| 0:24.0 | or lazy manner. Here's the word used in a sentence from Savur, quoting Scott Clark. Just across the |
| 0:32.1 | highway at Agnewivo State Park, elephant seals lull lazily on the beach. Despite appearances, |
| 0:40.7 | lull isn't an exaggerated version of the abbreviation LOL. It isn't even related to laughing. |
| 0:47.8 | Instead, it's about hanging out both literally and figuratively. Like another relaxing verb, |
| 0:53.9 | lull, meaning to cause to rest or sleep, |
| 0:57.0 | it probably originated as an imitation of the soft sounds people make when resting or |
| 1:03.0 | trying to soothe someone else to sleep. In addition to meaning to hang loosely, as in |
| 1:09.0 | a dog with its tongue lolling out. |
| 1:11.7 | Lall shares a meaning with a number of L verbs that are all about taking it easy, including |
| 1:17.2 | loaf, lounge, and lays. |
| 1:20.1 | With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sakalowski. |
| 1:25.4 | Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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