Other forms: lulls, lulled, lulling
A lull is a short quiet break in noise or activity. The moment the wind drops and everybody notices.
It is nearly always a pause in something that will start again: a lull in the fighting, a lull in the conversation, a lull in trade after Christmas. The phrase the lull before the storm names a quiet that is not reassuring at all. There is a verb too, and to lull is to soothe somebody towards sleep, which is exactly what a lullaby does. The dangerous version is to be lulled into a false sense of security.
Proto-Indo-European
*leh₂-
Middle English
lullen
English, today
lull
From Middle English lullen, lollen. Originally, perhaps imitative of the sound in origin from la-la-la or lu-lu-lu sounds made in calming a child. Compare Finnish laulaa (“to sing”) and hil 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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA