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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

cheese.

A dairy product made from curdled or cultured milk.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/t͡ʃiːz//t͡ʃiz/General-American
  1. A dairy product made from curdled or cultured milk.

    uncountable
  2. Any particular variety of cheese.

    countable
  3. A piece of cheese, especially one moulded into a large round shape during manufacture.

    countable
  4. A thick variety of jam (fruit preserve), as distinguished from a thinner variety (sometimes called jelly)

    UK · uncountable
  5. A substance resembling cream cheese, such as lemon cheese

    countable · uncountable
  6. That which is melodramatic, overly emotional, or cliché, i.e. cheesy.

    colloquial · uncountable
  7. Money.

    slang · uncountable
  8. In skittles, the roughly ovoid object that is thrown to knock down the skittles.

    UK · countable
  9. A fastball.

    slang · uncountable
  10. A dangerous mixture of black tar heroin and crushed Tylenol PM tablets. The resulting powder resembles grated cheese and is snorted.

    slang · uncountable
  11. Smegma.

    countable · slang · uncountable · vulgar
  12. Holed pattern of circuitry to decrease pattern density.

    countable · uncountable
  13. A mass of pomace, or ground apples, pressed together in the shape of a cheese.

    countable · uncountable
  14. The flat, circular, mucilaginous fruit of dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia) or marshmallow (Althaea officinalis).

    countable · uncountable
  15. A low curtsey; so called on account of the cheese shape assumed by a woman's dress when she stoops after extending the skirts by a rapid gyration.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Latin cāseusbor. Proto-Germanic *kāsijaz Proto-West Germanic *kāsī Old English ċīese Middle English chese English cheese From Middle English chese, from Anglian Old English ċēse, from Proto-West Germanic *kāsī, borrowed from Latin cāseus. Doublet of queso. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Síes (“cheese”), West Frisian tsiis (“cheese”), Dutch kaas (“cheese”), German Low German Kees (“cheese”), German Käse (“cheese”).

verb/t͡ʃiːz//t͡ʃiz/General-American
  1. To prepare curds for making cheese.

  2. To make holes in a pattern of circuitry to decrease pattern density.

  3. To smile excessively, as for a camera.

    slang
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Latin cāseusbor. Proto-Germanic *kāsijaz Proto-West Germanic *kāsī Old English ċīese Middle English chese English cheese From Middle English chese, from Anglian Old English ċēse, from Proto-West Germanic *kāsī, borrowed from Latin cāseus. Doublet of queso. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Síes (“cheese”), West Frisian tsiis (“cheese”), Dutch kaas (“cheese”), German Low German Kees (“cheese”), German Käse (“cheese”).

intj/t͡ʃiːz//t͡ʃiz/General-American
  1. Said while being photographed, to give the impression of smiling.

    Say "cheese"! ... and there we are!
Where this word comes from

Perhaps an alteration of cheers.

noun/t͡ʃiːz//t͡ʃiz/General-American
  1. Wealth, fame, excellence, importance.

    slang · uncountable
  2. The correct thing, of excellent quality; the ticket.

    British · India · dated · slang · uncountable
    These cheroots are the real cheese.
Where this word comes from

Though commonly claimed to be a borrowing of Persian چیز (čiz, “thing”), the term does not occur earliest in Anglo-Indian sources, but instead is "well recorded in British and Australian sources from the 1840s onwards".

verb/t͡ʃiːz//t͡ʃiz/General-American
  1. To stop; to refrain from.

    slang
    Cheese it! The cops!
    Cheese your patter! (= stop talking, shut up)
  2. To anger or irritate someone, usually in combination with "off".

    slang
    All this waiting around is really cheesing me off.
Where this word comes from

Etymology unknown. Possibly an alteration of cease.

noun/t͡ʃiːz//t͡ʃiz/General-American
  1. The exploitation, or opportunity for exploitation, of an unintentional video game mechanic.

    uncountable
Where this word comes from

From cheesy.

verb/t͡ʃiːz//t͡ʃiz/General-American
  1. To use a controversial or unsporting tactic to gain an advantage (especially in a game.)

    Internet · ambitransitive
    You can cheese most of the game using certain exploits.
  2. To use an unconventional, all-in strategy to take one's opponent by surprise early in the game (especially for real-time strategy games).

    slang
Where this word comes from

From cheesy.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.