Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also cheaters eyes, cheeters, eye cheaters) glasses, spectacles, esp. dark glasses; thus smoke cheaters, dark glasses.

1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 141: What chance would Napoleon have had of buffaloing the kings of Europe if he had had to bull them while peeping through a brace of eye cheaters.
1913–14		Van Loan ‘For the Pictures’ in Taking the Count 337: He wears a big pair of black-rimmed cheaters.
1929		A.J. Barr Let Tomorrow Come 40: He’s an old gink with funny cheaters an’ a Dinwiddie.
1938		W. Winchell ‘On Broadway’ 11 Nov. [synd. col.] Theorists argue Leopold and Leob would have got away with the killing of Bobby Franks had not Leopold’s spectacles been found near the body. Smart cops insist, however [...] finding the ‘cheaters’ merely hastened the collar.
1944		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 22 Jan. 10: Ralph Cooper went Hollywood [...] playing behind smoked cheaters.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 177: Cocking his sorrowful eyes over those hornrimmed cheeters.
1958		C. Himes Real Cool Killers (1969) 43: ‘Take those cheaters off’ [...] ‘Aw hell, Sheik, they couldn’t tell me from nobody else. Half the cats in Harlem wear their smoke cheaters all night long.’.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 794: cheaters – Spectacles, eye-glasses.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 177: Cheaters Eyes. Sometimes spectacles or sunglasses.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 77: cheaters, which can refer to false teeth, spectacles, and falsies or other padding for deceptively enhancing one’s physical attributes.
1991		(ref. to 1930s) in J. Breslin Damon Runyon (1992) 346: Men who wore glasses had on ‘cheaters’ or were called ‘four-eyed.’.

2. close-fitting men’s underpants, usu. with elastic legbands.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 202/2: cheaters. Close-fitting (male) pants, esp. if with elastic leg-bands; from ca. 1910; †.

3. pads which are placed in a brassiere to suggest a fuller breast.

1945		E. Wilson I Am Gazing Into My 8-Ball 70: [M]illions of men were being deceived [...] by scientific gadgets known as ‘falsies,’ ‘gay deceivers,’ ‘pads,’ and ‘cheaters’ [...] custom-made Bosoms that you could buy in New York .
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 156: Cheaters [...] make mountains out of molehills. They make young girls look like Lana Turner with four skeins of wool around her.
1951		Cusack & James Come in Spinner (1960) 105: ‘My God, I’ve got a chest like Lana Turner.’ [...] ‘You be grateful for it. D.D.T. has to wear cheaters.’.
1959		D. Hewett Bobbin Up (1961) 193: Why doncha get a coupla cheaters luv, an’ you wouldn’t look so much like a man dressed up.
1972		Dahlskog Dict. Contemp. and Colloq. Usage.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 77: cheaters, which can refer to false teeth, spectacles, and falsies or other padding for deceptively enhancing one’s physical attributes.

4. (orig. US) false teeth.

1950, 1966		in DARE.
1989		see sense 3.