cheese n.1
1. (US teen, also cheeserine, cheeze) money [? play on bread n.1 (2) or ? the yellow colour].
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | G’hals of N.Y. 135: As to the way in which yer emptied my pockets – yes; but not as to the time nor manner when you will restore the cheese! | |
| Biglow Papers 2nd series (1880) 20: Confed’rit bonds warn’t jest the cheese I needed. | |
| in Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) 7 Mar. 6/2: Put up a thousing V’s / And I will risk the cheese. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 256: Well, if it’s too much on the cheeserine, we can vamp out easy. | |
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 26: [said to a man with his hand in another’s pocket] Get away from the cheese . | |
| Go, Man, Go! 61: [He] thought of that assistant’s job Dick hinted at. Or is it cheese bait—for a rat? | |
| , | | DAS. |
| Dead Solid Perfect 156: ‘[T]hey’re always tryin’ to figure out a way to rob the dumb guys, who’ve already got their hands on the cheese?’. | |
 | ‘Friends’ 🎵 Couldn’t trust her with cheese, let alone your keys. | |
| ‘Murder’ 🎵 We with playa’z from the South stack gee’z man / Like Ball I got to stack big cheeze man . | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Guardian Rev. 20 Aug. 11: He’s going to kill everyone who gets in his way or messes with his ‘cheese’ (that’s money to you non-hood dwellers). | |
| ‘Face’ 🎵 [She’s] blatantly after your cheese. | |
| ‘Not for Attribution’ Wire ser. 5 ep. 3 [TV script] Where my cheese at? | |
| ‘Hate Bein’ Sober’ 🎵 My weed so strong, my cheese so long. | |
| Last Kind Words 226: Danny would want a fat hunk off the top and there wasn’t going to be much cheese left for the rest of them. |
2. as bodily fluids and secretions [underpinned by the smell of over-ripe cheese].
(a) the smegma that accumulates around the uncircumcised penis, occas. the unwashed labia.
| Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 22: This truly formidable weapon is worth a moment’s digression [...] In erection the noble owner can lick the cheese from under the prepuce. | |
| Mint (1955) 115: There’s more fucking cheese on your knob than hair on your block. | |
| in Limerick (1953) 160: There was a young fellow from Leith / Who used to skin cocks with his teeth. / It wasn’t for pleasure / He adopted this measure, / But to get at the cheese underneath. | |
| ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants. | |
| Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 7: cheese (n.): Smegma, which accumulates under the foreskin of an uncircumcised, unclean man; derived from its whitish color. | |
| Garden of Sand (1981) 187: You’re like your old man, only worse, and for a farmer he couldn’t raise cheese in the end of his dick! | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 43: cheese: smegma; cheezy ooze caked beneath an unclean foreskin, or about the unwashed labia minora of a woman. | |
| After The Ball 305: Hung, filthy, uncut loaded with cheese. | |
| Ozark Folksongs and Folklore I 176: Willie Smith favored me by belting out at the piano this one and only stanza – concerning preputial smegma, or ‘cheese’ [...] ‘Lift up your skirt, gal, an’ gimme a breeze, / What am I gonna do with all this cheese?’. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | Gayle 61/2: cheese n. smegma. | |
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz Apr. 47: clamembert n. Female equivalent of helmetdale. Fanny cheese. |
(b) (US, also body cheese) secretions found between the toes.
| Campus Sl. Mar. 2: body cheese – any natural buildup of body cells. e.g. ear wax [...] I just cleaned my feet. They had large amounts of body (here, also toe) cheese. | |
| ‘Feeling Good’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] If I did [get close] she’d smell like toe cheese. |
3. in fig. uses, usu. negative.
(a) an unpleasant, incompetent, stupid person; usu. ext. as big cheese, old cheese, piece of cheese, plate of cheese, poor cheese etc.
| Eton School Days 67: You are such a cheese. | |
| Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 17: cheese n. 1. An ignorant, stupid person. | |
| I’m from Missouri 90: Who is Peter Grant’s opponent? A piece of cheese! | |
| Jim Hickey 36: Didn't I pipe him helping her up the steps the plate of cheese! | |
| Philosophy of Johnny the Gent 5: One day they’ll be tellin’ everybody what a hunk o’ cheese the other guy is, an’ the next time you see ’em they're thicker’n Rubes around a big six wheel. | |
| Beat It 62: I found him entertaining a German nobleman — the Count Cheese von Cheese. | |
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 46: Any time a party can make you make a cheese out of yourself, you may be sure said party has your goat. | |
| Silk Hat Harry’s Divorce Suit 18 July [synd. cartoon strip] You piece of cheese. Why don’t you trade that dome of yours for a nice Brussels sprout. | |
| Us Boys 4 Nov. [synd. cartoon strip] I’m a cheese at [writing]. I wasted up nine sheets of paper already. | |
| Rabid Rudolph 4 Dec. [synd. col.] Heeza Cheese, who has the scenter job wished on him, received his goatskin at Jale. | |
| ‘Nine Assists and Two Errors’ in Score by Innings (2004) 410: I may turn out to be quite a pitcher – and then again I may be a piece of cheese. | |
| ‘The Love Nest’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 207: Well, you are an old cheese! To make me dance alone! | |
| Enter the Saint 45: Any time any of you bad cheeses want any more lessons in rough-housing [...] drop me a postcard. | |
| There Ain’t No Justice 259: I ought to have known better. Taking up with a piece of cheese like you. | |
| ‘Knife Thrower’ in Popular Detective June 🌐 Why you should be cut up in chunks to bait mouse-traps with, [...] you big hunk of cheese. | |
| Go, Man, Go! 142: 3-B it said in the lobby. That your hole? You take us up the back way, you piece of cheese. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Big Smoke 172: What can he do, the silly old cheese? | |
| Mott the Hoople 41: He was a great cheese of a man. | |
| Shaft 13: He was a big piece of cheese. | |
| Campus Sl. Mar. 9: weenie cheese – an insult. ‘Stop being such a weenie cheese.’. | |
| Rent Boy 37: Even with all his debts, Stagpole must be one of the richest cheeses in New York. |
(b) as sense 3a but used joc./affectionately.
| Mysterious Beggar 270: I smiled an abnegatin’ Curb-Stone-Chapel smile on him, and then handed out Takemein’s letter. The old cheese! He took it in, sure ’nough! He read it all through; v-e-r-r-y slow. | |
| ‘“Butterfly” Boggs: Pitcher’ in Lucky Seventh (2004) 243: You’re a fine piece of cheese, I must say! Where’ve you been? | |
| Main Street (1921) 42: The old cheese there is Luke Dawson, the richest man in town. | |
| Manhattan Transfer 174: Didn’t I graduate from Columbia you big cheese, that’s more than you could do. | |
| Hope College ‘Dict. of New Terms’ 🌐 cheese n. Synonym for dork or nerd, only used affectionately. ‘I can’t believe you did that for me, you cheese!’. |
(c) (US) nonsense; thus phr. no cheese, no bad thing, something ‘not to be sniffed at’.
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 135: In these times 50 bucks is no cheese and it behooves every wife to take a slam at that 50. [Ibid.] 151: ‘But officer, let me explain.’ ‘Aw, cheese, cheese.’. | |
| ‘Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 23: ‘If you win this game, I’ll give you — ’ ‘Cheese! Cheese! [...] You’ll give me nothing.’. | |
| ‘Little primer of the Prize Ring’ 11 Dec. [synd. col.] Has it Been a Bad Fight all the way? Yes, My Son, it has been [...] a piece of Cheese. | |
| Babbitt (1974) 70: I just wanted to show how many different kinds of correspondence-courses there are, instead of all the camembert they teach us in the High. | |
| Stretch on River 10: What a line of cheese! [W&F]. | |
| IOL News 9 Nov. 🌐 OK, all cheese aside. |
(d) (US campus) something out-of-date.
| Sl. U. 56: That dress you’re wearing is total cheese. |
(e) (US campus) someone or something unattractive, unappealing, undesirable.
| Sl. and Sociability 70: Cheese became a metaphor for ‘something unattractive or undesirable’. |
4. (US) a selection, a group.
| Mutt & Jeff 21 Oct. [synd. strip] [of a number of books] The whole cheese for 90 cents. |
5. (US) one’s affair, one’s concern.
| Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1926) 50: Why, it was none of my ‘cheese’. |
6. uses based on the colour.
(a) (US) a light-skinned black person.
| in DARE. |
(b) (drugs) crack cocaine.
| Black Talk. | |
| ‘Heaven’ 🎵 I wonder if it’s a heaven up there for real G’s / For all the niggaz in the game that be sellin cheese. | |
| ‘2+2x2 🎵 Light up the cheese, inhale, exhale, then I’m screaming fuck these niggas. | |
| ‘5am Vamping’ 🎵 Had am you were smoking on cheese. |
(c) (US drugs) a combination of heroin and cold medication crushed into a powder.
| Wikipedia 🌐 Cheese is a recreational drug that [...] is formed by combining heroin and crushed over-the-counter common cold medication (such as Tylenol PM). [...] Cheese may contain up to 8% heroin. The powder is snorted instead of being injected. |
7. (UK drugs, also blue cheese) a variety of marijuana.
| What They Was 287: The sports bag with [...] nine zeds of cheese inside. |
8. see big cheese n.
In compounds
(US campus) someone or something unattractive, unappealing, undesirable or not attuned to group standards.
| Vic Reeves Big Night Out n.p.: Your wife’s playin’ midnight skittles with a cheeseball. | |
| Guardian Rev. 2 July 16: I’m a cheeseball sometimes. |
usu. of a boxer, a particularly useless or second-rate person.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | N.Z. Truth 10 Feb. 11: American scribes mostly think so little of Darcy's prospective antagonist as a boxer that they usually refer to him as ‘the cheese champion.’ ‘Cheese,’ In Yankee slang, means poor of cheap. | |
| Fighting Blood 313: ‘Cheese champion,’ ‘false alarm,’ and ‘yellow’ is just a few of the labels they tacked after my name. | |
| Shearer’s Colt 183: ‘He’s a cheese champion dis Australian hoss,’ he said. ‘Why worry about heem? Even if we gave heem de fast stuff he wouldn’t beat de clerk o’ de course.’. | |
| Black is Best 114: ‘Clay and Bundini were shouting at each other, “Float like a butterfly! Sting like a bee! Ready to rumble! Let’s take on the bum! He ain’t no champ, he’s a cheese champ!”’. | |
| ‘Where I Get My Weird Shit’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 31: I [...] picked up dirt [...] Floyd Patterson – cheese champ. |
(US) an obnoxious person.
| Platoon [movie script] All right, you cheesedicks, welcome to the Nam. Follow me. | |
| Names of Dead 125: You know you still a cheesedick dumbfuck know-nothing cherry. | |
| Happy Mutant Baby Pills 193: The cheesedick bastard who banged my head off the marble floor of a Four Seasons bathroom. |
(US campus) a stupid, unpleasant person.
| Sl. U. 56: If that cheese dong makes another stupid comment I will hit him. | |
| Glamour 89 76: cheese dong: incredibly stupid person. |
see separate entry.
(S.Afr.) a bald person.
| Pace n.d. 19/1: My bald head is nothing new. My partents insisted that we all shaved our heads — I’m glad they did because now the cheesekop style is the in thing. | |
| Drum n.d. 12/1: When we formed Abashante we decided to do something extreme, so we went for the ‘cheesekop’ look. | |
| IOL News (Western Cape) 12 Aug. 🌐 I used to be known as cheesekop because of my bald head. |
1. (US campus) a socially inept person.
| Campus Sl. Fall. | |
| Sl. and Sociability 31: As in the general vocabulary of English, slang permits the compounding of words of various grammatical classes, with the exact relationship between the parts unspecified. noun + noun is the dominant pattern: [...] cheeseman ‘socially inept person’ (man [subject] is cheezy [adjective]). |
2. a womanizer [cheese n.2 (2)].
| Campus Sl. Mar. 2: cheese man – male always preoccupied with attracting women. |
the part of the penis between the glans and the shaft.
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: cheese ridge n. The fertile area of the penis where knob cheese (qv) is cultivated. Also banjo (qv). |
the urethra.
| Amatory Ink 🌐. |
see cheez whiz n.
a penis that has not been cleansed of smegma.
| ‘Rod of Might’ on ‘Absolute Beastiality Stories’ at nude-sex-fantasy.com 🌐 I looked at his cock, fantastically hard, the head drooling precum like piss. His foreskin was drawn back, the cheesy head stood revealed, a helmeted warrior. |
In phrases
see separate entry.
see big cheese n.
(US) unsatisfactory, in a bad way.
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 79: Mista Johnson, don’t let ’em put this here place on the cheese. For Gawd’s sake, save us! | |
| Maison De Shine 296: An’ then the best I draw is to be bit up and put on the cheeserine until I prob’ly won’t be able to work fur a year! | |
| Sorrows of a Show Girl Ch. xi: The other two acts may be on the cheese, but the first act is good. | |
| in Sidewalks of America (1954) 553: [song title] I Put Him on the Cheese. |
(US) to make money.
| UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(prizefighting) the stomach.
| Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 3 Sept. n.p.: Bell got home a heavy blow on Sullivan’s ‘cheese bag’ . |
1. (US) a run-down, dilapidated vehicle.
| Old Bunch (1946) 566: Why don’t you trade in that cheesebox. I trade in my chevvy every year. | |
| ‘Kaddish’ II (1961) 13: And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of the gang? | |
| ‘Amsterdam’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 4 [TV script] What the fuck’s up with that cheesebox? [i.e. a school bus]. |
2. a mass-produced suburban house; also attrib.
| Mad mag. Jan. 23: A tree that takes up so much space / Where cheesebox homes could stand in place. |
3. (US campus) a computer; thus cheese, software.
| College Sl. Dict. 🌐 cheese [CMU] software. [Ibid.] cheesebox [CMU] computer. |
4. the head, the mind.
| Observer Mag. 12 Sept. 24: Use your cheesebox and say no, never. |
see separate entry.
1. an aquiline nose.
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 16: Cheese Cutter, a prominent, aquiline nose. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 192: There are also, according to juvenile observers, people with ‘ferret’ noses [...] ‘cheese cutters’, and ‘Rudolphs’. |
2. in pl., bandy legs.
| Modern Flash Dict. | |
| Flash Mirror 9: Your legs would make an excellent pair of cheese-cutters. | |
| Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open. |
3. a large, square peak on a cap; thus a flat cloth cap.
| Sl. Dict. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Dundee Courier (Scot.) 13 Oct. 6/6: I carried the two hats [...] the latter a cloth one with a straight ‘cheese-cutter’. | |
| Belfast Wkly News 21 Dec. 3/1: That young fellow with the cheese-cutter cap is ‘dodging Tommy’. | |
| (con. WW2) Heart of Oak [ebook] I was dressed in a too-big sea-jersey knitted by my mother [...] a striped Welsh linen shirt, a cheese-cutter cap and shiny black moleskin trousers. | |
| West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 100: The clobber of that mob / cheese-cutters and football boots. | |
| ‘On Broadway’ in N.Y. mag. 6 Jan. 22/1: A tangled mop of hair spilling out from under a cheese-cutter cap. | |
| in Spitalfields Life 1 Oct. 🌐 The villains [...] wore traditional gear, coat and scarf and a cheese cutter, and no-one paid any attention. |
4. a (large) knife.
| Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 20 July 12/3: He plunged his hand in his vest, drawing out an American bowie knife [...] ‘All right, old hoss, your cheese-cutter agin my six-shooter,’ and the one-eyed giant [...] held forth a revolver. | |
| Devil of Dartmoor in Illus. Police News 22 Oct. 12/2: ‘Drink up that wine, or by holy Moses I’ll put this cheese-cutter between your ribs!’. |
5. the penis.
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. |
(US) a knife.
| ‘The Coming-Out of Maggie’ in Four Million (1915) 80: Chuck that cheese slicer out of the window. | |
| Deer-smellers of Haunted Mountain 204: Give your Emperor a cheese-dagger and see if he has nerve enough for harri-karri . | |
| Adventuring with Twelve Year Olds 74: When Jack got down he calmly took out his cheese dagger and was about to rip me open. | |
| Best that Ever Did It (1957) 81: He took a switch blade out of his pocket. [...] ‘Cliff, put that cheese sticker away,’ Louise said. | |
| (ref. to mid-1960s) Queens’ Vernacular 105: cheese-scraper (kwn San Diego, mid ’60s) knife or razor carried for protection. |
1. (US) a toady, a sycophant.
| Wanderings of a Vagabond 287: Wa-al now, if Kline and me can’t clean out them cheeseeaters, I’ll never show my mug to the Pints again. |
2. (US) an informer.
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 23 Oct. 21: Please don’t think me to be a cheese eater but this is the only way I can put this scribble to you. | |
| et al. DAUL 42/2: Cheese-eater. (N. Y. State prisons) An informer. | |
| letter 23 Dec. in Joint (1972) 27: The joint is full of cheese-eaters. | |
| On the Waterfront (1964) 15: I worked too hard for what I got to frig around with a cheese-eater. | |
| , | | DAS. |
| World’s Toughest Prison 794: cheese eater – An informer. | |
| Ringolevio 149: I never want to see you again, you cheese-eatin’ motherfucker! | |
| Prison Sl. 35: Cheese Eater also Cheese Pride and Cheesey Rider Expressions used sarcastically in reference to a ‘snitch’ or ‘rat.’. | |
| Da Bomb Summer Supplement 3: Cheese-eater (n.) Someone who gives out information. | |
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Cheese Eater: An informer. |
3. (US black) a subservient black person who courts white affection.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 cheese-eater Definition: a white mans’s nigga. a nigga whose one goal in life is to please the white man. Example: Yo, Jerome is one cheese-eating nigga. He was the one who dropped dime on Terrell to the big boss. |
1. a sword.
| Peregrine Pickle (1964) 278: He did not value their cheese-toasters a pinch of oakum. | |
| Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 142: But i’fackins, Mr. Clinker wa’n’t long in his debt – with a good oaken sapling he dusted his doublet, for all his golden cheese toaster. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 112: Hector sha’n’t cease o’ th’ bum to kick ’em, / Or with his old cheese-toaster stick ’em. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Peter’s Letters 30: The powdered young puppies of plebeian pages, with their cheese- toasters bruising each others shins ever and anon. | |
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. | |
| Spitfire 215: They are a gallant set of fellows in the boats [...] there’s young Philadelphia flourishing his cheese-toaster, as if he would spit us all. | |
| Virginians II Ch. 10 82: I’ll drive my cheese-toaster through his body. | |
| Rob of the Bowl 251: He must needs, for a fancy, put on the red coat again, and buckle his cheese-toaster to his thigh. | |
| Dundee Courier 31 Jan. 3/3: Flourishing the ‘cheese-toaster’ in a warlike manner he raised his voice. | |
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. |
2. a bayonet.
| Andrew Jackson 99: Give it tu ’em my lads, six inches of your cheese-toasters! [Ibid.] 102: In a wink a solder pin’d him tu the ground with his cheese-toaster. | |
| You Chirped a Chinful!! n.p.: Cheese Toaster: Bayonet. |
3. (US) a large knife.
| Lancaster Gaz. 29 June 4/4: His flight might possibly be accelerated by the flash of a ‘revolver’ or the insertion under his fifth rib of an ‘Arkansas cheese-toaster’. |
In phrases
(US) to intensify a situation, positively or negatively.
| Marines in China (1987) 98: Lt. H —, noting my misstep, [...] fell in atop of me, thus ‘making the cheese more binding’ as per Lt. B—. | |
| Motion Picture Herald 106 82: To make the cheese more binding this editor and theatre owner is also the town mayor, which is another thing to take some more joy out of Eddie's life. | |
| Nobody’s Fool 126: I asked for a check for one hundred thousand dollars. ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘if you think that’ll make the cheese more binding’. | |
| Man Who Rocked Boat 235: To make the cheese more binding, Mike's brother, Joe, was reported [...] as having said, ‘I’ve thought from the beginning that he probably fell in the river’. | |
| When All Is said & Done 19: Especially having thrown my knee in at the last minute to make the cheese more binding, as it were. | |
| (con. 1916) Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 61: And to make the cheese more binding, he knew these things in his very guts. | |
| Windhaven’s Triumph 312: Look, Milo [...] just to make the cheese more binding, I’m going to contribute a little something to the business at hand. | |
| at tmeinert.emgt.umr.edu 🌐 On Super Bowl Sunday, the Green Bay Packers will make the cheese more binding for the Denver Broncos. I say Packers by 14. | |
| Newsmax.com 21 Mar. 🌐 To make the cheese more binding, readers who opt for the free version will have to put up with even bigger commercial come-ons and those infuriating pop-up frames that drive Internet readers bonkers. | |
| Letters from Hills 81: I thank that Delilah jist wants to git out of Hogwaller. Iffen she makes money to boot, well, that jist makes the cheese more binding, don’t you know. |