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Spixxy
ANSWERS: 1
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The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms says it's a colloquialism dating from the late 1800s and derives from a slangy term with the same meaning from the early 1800s, "to have a case on." [Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=have%20a%20case%20on] The Online Etymology Dictionary says that in the sense of "person one is infatuated with" it is first recorded 1884 and to have a crush on is from 1913, with both uses deriving from the Old French "croisir," meaning to gnash (teeth), crash, or break. [Source: http://www.etymonline.com/c10etym.htm] Other sources provide essentially the same information, but none offer any speculation as to how the term came to be associated with that meaning.
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