Why Do We Call It a “Crush”?

There’s nothing quite like a crush to make you feel like a kid again, no matter your age. The thrill of secret glances, handwritten love letters, or, these days, simply “liking” someone’s Instagram story. But the word “crush” didn’t start out so innocent. Originally, it simply meant to squash or smash something until it changed shape or was destroyed entirely. Somehow, we went from literal destruction to puppy love, and the word stuck.

The Modern Crush

Before the word “crush” took on its romantic meaning, people still felt that unmistakable flutter of affection—the kind of feeling that didn’t really need a name. Today, Merriam-Webster defines a crush as “an intense and usually passing infatuation,” perfectly capturing that mix of excitement, longing, and awkward giddiness. You know, those butterflies-inducing moments that make your mind go blank and maybe even convince you to hit the gym a little harder.

Crush Crash Course

Like many love-adjacent words, “crush” traces back to French. In the 14th century, it grew out of the Old French verb croissir, meaning to smash or break something, usually with a loud crash. Not exactly romantic.

For centuries, “crush” in English retained that definition of compression and destruction. By the 1500s, it also described people crowding together.

Things got interesting in the 1880s. The shift from smash to swoon seems to hinge on "mash"—and no, not the fortune-telling game, but the actual word, which gradually evolved into the idea of a softer, more emotional kind of “crush.”

In late‑19th‑century American slang, “mash” referred to an intense infatuation or the object of one’s affection, and “to mash” someone basically meant to flirt. By 1875, a “masher” was a guy making bold (sometimes unwelcome) passes at women, though by the 1880s, “mash” and “masher” had softened into something more romantic. Since “mash” already had a rose-colored connotation—and shared the literal “pressing” sense with “crush”—some etymologists, like Eric Partridge, think “crush” may have stepped in as a snappier cousin, describing that same fluttery feeling.

It’s easy to see why the literal meaning of “crush” fits so well with romantic infatuation: after all, a crush can feel like your heart is literally being squished under a ton of emotions. Sudden, intense, sometimes unrequited—that all-consuming chaos mirrors the pressure implied in the word “crush”, making it a perfect way to describe first loves, secret admirations, and that stranger at work who may or may not be your soulmate.

Crush in Culture

Around the same time it was spreading by word of mouth, “crush” started appearing in print with its romantic meaning. One of the earliest examples comes from Isabella Maud Rittenhouse’s 1884 journal, where she writes about a girl named Wintie, heartbroken over her crush: “Wintie is weeping because her crush is gone.” By the 1890s, writers were using “crush” to describe the feeling itself, not just the person inspiring it. In 1895, John Seymour Wood’s Yale Yarns even mentions a mutual crush: “It was a 'crush,' you see, on both sides.”

Today, having a crush is almost as much a rite of passage as losing your first tooth. The word pops up everywhere in pop culture—from magazine quizzes decoding what your celebrity crush might say about you to articles decoding the subtle signs your crush likes you. Movies, TV shows, and romance novels practically run on crushes, too: just look at classic teen rom‑coms like Flipped and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, where the whole story hinges on instant attraction.

Social media hasn’t slowed the trend; Instagram likes, heart emojis, and DMs are just the latest ways we subtly signal our infatuations. Through it all, crush keeps its playful, almost childlike charm: a silly bit of slang that makes you stammer, stumble, and maybe even blush.