Other forms: lullabies
A lullaby is a gentle song sung to send a child to sleep. Sing a lullaby, an old lullaby, the tune of a lullaby.
Lullabies are found in every known culture and share features across unrelated languages: slow tempo, repetition, a falling melody and a rocking rhythm. A striking number of the words are about danger — falling cradles, absent parents — which folklorists put down to the singer needing somewhere to put their own exhaustion. Note lull, the verb inside it, meaning to soothe into calm, and a lull, meaning a quiet interval.
1nounlullabyA gentle song sung to send a child to sleep.
“The lullaby was the only thing that ever worked.”
lullaby is a song.
The word is lull plus by — lull being an imitation of the sound made to soothe a child, and by from the bye of bye-bye, the murmur that goes with rocking. Both halves are noises rather than meanings.
Middle English
lullen — to lull
English, today
lullaby
From Middle English lullen (“to lull”) + bye. First recorded c. 1560. Compare Old English bī, bī (“lullaby!”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA