love at first sight
36
3.4
- idiom
:
amor a primera vista
- When they locked eyes across the crowded room, I knew it was love at first sight.
- fall in love at first sight
- believe in love at first sight
- experience love at first sight
They met somebody and they fell in love at first sight and now they're getting engaged.
- They met somebody and they fell in love at first sight and now they're getting engaged.
- And so eventually, you know, it's it, it, it like, was it was it like one of those relationships that was just like crazy love at first sight?
- That tells us that love at first sight is actually incomplete.
- The this idea is kind of born out of this societal myth of love at first sight.
- And I would argue that the guy that you ultimately fall in love with, there's a good chance that it's not going to be love at first sight.
- In the early stages of dating, love at first sight is an extremely dangerous idea.
- According to a Bustle Bustle article, if there's one sign that is most likely to fall in love at first sight, it's Pisces.
- Like you as a neuroscientist who studies the brain, do you think it ruins the magic of like love at first sight?
Examples
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I can't recall when it happened, but I'm sure it was love at first sight.
Fiction book (1990) -
Excuse me, do you believe in love at first sight?
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"Do you believe in love at first sight?"
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Do you believe in love at first sight?
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So, was it love at first sight?
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For Michael, it was love at first sight.
Academic text (2004) -
When she first walked onto the screen in July of 1995, it was love at first sight.
Blog text (15) -
It was love at first sight.
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From the first moment he saw her, Garrison knew it was love at first sight.
Fiction book (1999) -
For Ariella, it's love at first sight.
Fiction book (1993)
Synonyms
271
2.9
A short strong feeling of attraction to someone you like
20
5.1
A strong short feeling of attraction that is not true love
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the parts: 'love' (affection) combined with 'first' + 'sight' (the initial act of seeing) yields the idea of falling in love immediately upon first seeing someone. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'amor a primera vista', French 'amour à première vue') and follows standard English noun phrase structure, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily understand it.
Etymology
Love at first sight probably comes from a simple romantic image: one popular story says Cupid's arrow hits you the moment you see someone, so the love starts at the first sight. That's why the phrase means 'to fall in love' immediately when you first meet or see someone.