"Star-crossed" or "star-crossed lovers" is a phrase describing a pair of lovers whose relationship is often thwarted by outside forces. The term encompasses other meanings, but originally means the pairing is being "thwarted by a malign star" or that the stars are working against the relationship. The phrase is astrological in origin, stemming from the belief that the positions of the stars ruled over people's fates, and is best known from the pl...
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"Star-crossed" or "star-crossed lovers" is a phrase describing a pair of lovers whose relationship is often thwarted by outside forces. The term encompasses other meanings, but originally means the pairing is being "thwarted by a malign star" or that the stars are working against the relationship. The phrase is astrological in origin, stemming from the belief that the positions of the stars ruled over people's fates, and is best known from the play Romeo and Juliet by the Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare. Such pairings are often but not always said to be doomed from the start.
The phrase was coined in the prologue of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:
"From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life" (5–6).
It also refers to destiny and the inevitability of the two characters' paths crossing each other. It usually but not always refers to unlucky outcomes, since Romeo and Juliet's affair ended tragically. Further, it connotes that the...
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