The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (1908) gives the meaning of nephilim as ' giants', and holds that proposed etymologies of the word are 'all very precarious.' Many suggested interpretations are based on the assumption that the word is a derivative of Hebrew verbal root n-p-l ( נ־פ־ל) 'fall.' Robert Baker Girdlestone argued in 1871 the word comes from the hif'il causative stem, implying that the nephilim are to be perceived as 'those that cause others to fall down'.
3.4 Arguments from culture and mythology.
