What does LOL mean?
Short answer
LOL means "laughing out loud." It started in 1980s bulletin board and chat culture as a literal report of laughter and has since drifted into a tone marker — a way of signalling that a message is friendly, casual, or not entirely serious, whether or not anyone actually laughed.
Where it came from
LOL spread through pre-web online communities — bulletin board systems, Usenet, and early instant messengers — where typing speed mattered and acronyms did the emotional work that faces and voices normally handle. It outlived every platform that produced it, and dictionaries now list it as standard slang.
How the meaning shifted
| Usage | What it actually signals |
|---|---|
| "lol that's amazing" | Genuine amusement |
| "lol sorry, running late" | Softening an awkward message |
| "lol ok" | Dismissal, sometimes hostile |
| "LOL" | Louder, more emphatic, often ironic |
| "lolol" / "lmao" | Escalated, genuinely funny |
The laughter ladder
- lol — laughing out loud; mild, everyday, often just tone.
- lmao — laughing my ass off; genuinely funny, more vulgar.
- rofl — rolling on the floor laughing; theatrical.
- lmfao — the same as lmao with more emphasis.
- 💀 / 😭 — the current emoji equivalents of "that killed me".
LOL as a place on the internet
LOL is also an address. .lol is a real top-level domain, and the sites built on it are the purest surviving form of the joke web: one gag, one URL, no business model. BuiltFor.lol exists to catalogue and rank them.
Common questions
What does LOL stand for?
LOL stands for 'laughing out loud'. It began as shorthand on bulletin board systems and early chat networks and is now standard English internet slang.
Does LOL still mean someone is actually laughing?
Usually not. In modern usage LOL most often softens a message or marks it as light-hearted, closer to a tone marker than a description of real laughter.
Is it LOL, lol, or Lol?
All three are in use. Lowercase 'lol' reads as casual and conversational; uppercase 'LOL' reads as louder or more emphatic. Neither is incorrect.
What is the difference between LOL, LMAO, and ROFL?
They escalate. LOL is mild acknowledgement, ROFL ('rolling on the floor laughing') is stronger, and LMAO is stronger still and more vulgar.
What is a .lol website?
A website built on the .lol top-level domain — almost always a joke site, gag tool, or single-serving page whose address is part of the punchline.