Fall for means to fall in love with someone, or to be fooled by a trick. Both meanings are informal. With a person, it is a sudden strong attraction. With a trick, it means someone believed a lie, an advert or a scammer.
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fall for + person (start to love); fall for + trick/lie/scam (be fooled); fell/fallen (past)
- Emma fell for a guy from her Spanish class and never missed a lesson after that.
- Don't fall for emails that ask you to confirm your bank password.
What changed
First versionMy grandmother almost fell on a phone scam last week.
RevisionMy grandmother almost fell for a phone scam last week.
When a trick catches you, on can seem like the logical preposition. But English says fall for: fall for a scam, fall for a trick. Fall on literally means to drop onto something, so fell on a phone scam makes no sense.
Fall for someone sounds lighter and more informal than fall in love with: it is a sudden attraction, not necessarily a deep feeling. The opposite of the second meaning is see through, to realise that something is a trick: I saw through his excuse at once.
Your turn
After three dates, Anna realised she had completely ___ him.
Show the answer
fallen for — Fallen for him means she fell in love with him; the preposition is already part of the expression. Fall in love needs with: fallen in love with him. Without with, the second option is wrong.
Write about a time when you or someone you know fell for a trick. Describe what the trick was and how it was discovered.
My friend fell for a fake delivery text and paid a small fee; he realised it was a scam when the courier's website had no record of his parcel.
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