LOL or
lol, an acronym for
laugh(ing) out loud, or
lots of laughs, is a popular element of
Internet slang. It was first used almost exclusively on
Usenet, but has since become widespread in other forms of
computer-mediated communication and even
face-to-face communication. It is one of many
initialisms for expressing bodily reactions, in particular
laughter, as text, including initialisms for more emphatic expressions of laughter such as
LMAO ("laugh(ing) my ass off") and
ROFL (or its older form
ROTFL; "roll(ing) on the floor laughing"). Other unrelated expansions include the now mostly
obsolete "lots of luck" or "lots of love" used in letter-writing.