Etymology of “Falling In Love”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hi. This is Leslie from Escondido.

Escondido. Hi, Leslie. What’s going on?

Well, I was wondering about the origins of the phrase falling in love.

Are you?

Yes, yes. Especially since we were discussing in services at our synagogue the other day.

We were discussing Genesis 24, verse 64.

And the rabbi mentioned something interesting about the Hebrew translation.

It’s the story of Rebecca when she meets Isaac.

And apparently she’s riding a camel when she first lays eyes on him.

And the Bible always translates what she does next as she alit from her camel.

But our rabbi said that the Hebrew actually indicates that she fell off her camel because the Hebrew word for what she did was no fail, which means to fall.

And so I was wondering, I wonder if that’s where we got falling in love.

Oh, my goodness.

That’s interesting.

Well, Leslie, I have to tell you that I grew up as a Baptist preacher’s kid, and Genesis 24, 64, is burned into my memory.

I remember it very, very well, but for a completely embarrassing reason.

Oh, hello.

Let me get my notepad.

Blackmail.

Well, my little brother and I used to run around as preacher’s kids, and we would say, do you know when cigarettes were mentioned in the Bible? Genesis 24, 64.

And Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she lighted off the camel.

Thank you for laughing.

I appreciate it.

That’s how the King James Version translates the Hebrew Scripture there.

So I remember, embarrassingly enough, I remember this verse very, very well.

And I was not aware of the original Hebrew meaning of the verb there.

So I don’t know if she was just so nonplussed to see Isaac that she fell off the camel.

But I would suspect that that doesn’t have anything to do with falling in love.

That would be my guess.

Did your rabbi suggest that it did?

No, I just suggested that it did.

And then everybody laughed and I got a big kick out of making a joke.

So you’re a comedian as well. I see.

Well, I can tell you that falling in love, we first did this in English in the late 1500s.

And I think the idea was simply that it’s, A, something that happens to you suddenly and that when you fall, you’re sort of out of control too, which was sort of be consistent with falling in love.

Oh, yeah.

Fall for somebody.

It’s consistent with French.

French has the exact same phrase, only in French, of course.

Tomber amoureux, to fall in love, is exactly the same.

So I wouldn’t be surprised if the English got it from the French.

That would make sense.

And I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in all the Romance languages.

You know, if you’ve ever seen the Godfather movies, you know that there’s the thunderbolt or the lightning bolt when you fall in love in Italian, right?

And there’s all these ways to indicate that falling in love is a bit of a personal disaster, right?

You’ve kind of been struck down beyond your ability to fight back.

Well, Cupid and his arrows, yeah, exactly.

Sure, sure.

Although sometimes falling in love is less like a lightning bolt and more like a sunrise, don’t you think?

I agree.

All right.

Well, thanks for reminding me of that joke.

Thanks for sharing it.

I’m glad somebody finally laughed at it.

All right.

Thank you, Leslie.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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