Meaning
Laughing so hard you almost fall out of your seat. Usually found in the construction to have an audience rolling in the aisles, meaning to be hilariously funny. Informal, and used chiefly in entertainment contexts and relaxed speech. Informal and jocular; nearly always about comedy rather than literal laughing. Regional use: General English.
Origin
An Americanism from the theatre: the aisle is the passage between rows of seats, and the joke is that an audience laughing hard enough would tumble into it. Word Histories traces the earliest known record to a farce review in the Cincinnati Enquirer of 7 January 1901, which reported of a performance that men all but rolled in the aisles. The exact modern form is first recorded later: you had them rolling around in the aisles appears in These Days, a short story by William Slavens McNutt in Munsey's Magazine of May 1922. Newspaper items from 1915 and 1917 describe people literally rolling in church aisles out of boredom or revival fervour, but these are later and literal; the theatrical laughter sense came first, which corrects a common claim that the phrase originated in ecstatic worship.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- be rolling in the aisles
- had them rolling in the aisles
- have them rolling in the aisles
- leave them rolling in the aisles
- roll in the aisles
Usage Examples
- The comedian's set about self-checkout machines had the whole theatre rolling in the aisles.
- It is a warm, observant film rather than one that leaves you rolling in the aisles.
- Grandfather told the story of the runaway wedding car so well that we were rolling in the aisles again.