cheese

English Online Dictionary. What means cheese‎? What does cheese mean?

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: chēz, IPA^(key): /t͡ʃiːz/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃiz/
• Rhymes: -iːz
• Homophone: qis

Etymology 1

From Middle English chese, from Old English ċīese, specifically the Anglian form 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”).

Noun

cheese (countable and uncountable, plural cheeses or (archaic) cheesen)

2. (uncountable) A dairy product made from curdled or cultured milk.
3. (countable) Any particular variety of cheese.
4. (countable) A piece of cheese, especially one moulded into a large round shape during manufacture.
5. (uncountable, UK) A thick variety of jam (fruit preserve), as distinguished from a thinner variety (sometimes called jelly)
   • 1807, Nutt, F. (1807). The Complete Confectioner: Or, The Whole Art of Confectionary Made Easy: Containing, Among a Variety of Useful Matter, the Art of Making the Various Kinds of Biscuits, Drops ... as Also the Most Approved Method of Making Cheeses, Puddings, Cakes &c. in 250 Cheap and Fashionable Receipts. The Result of Many Years Experience with the Celebrated Negri and Witten. United Kingdom: reprinted, for Richard Scott and sold at his bookstore, no. 243 Pearl-street.

     p.82-3, No.244. Damson Cheese: “Pick the damsons free from stalks···You may make plum or bullace cheese in the same way···”

6. A substance resembling cream cheese, such as lemon cheese
7. (uncountable, colloquial) That which is melodramatic, overly emotional, or cliché, i.e. cheesy.
8. (uncountable, slang) Money.
9. (countable, UK) In skittles, the roughly ovoid object that is thrown to knock down the skittles.
10. (uncountable, slang, baseball) A fastball.
11. (uncountable, slang) A dangerous mixture of black tar heroin and crushed Tylenol PM tablets. The resulting powder resembles grated cheese and is snorted.
12. (vulgar, slang) Smegma.
13. (technology) Holed pattern of circuitry to decrease pattern density.
    • 2006, US Patent 7458053, International Business Machines Corporation

      It is known in the art to insert features that are electrically inactive (“fill structures”) into a layout to increase layout pattern density or and to remove features from the layout (“cheese structures”) to decrease layout pattern density.

14. A mass of pomace, or ground apples, pressed together in the shape of a cheese.
15. The flat, circular, mucilaginous fruit of dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia) or marshmallow (Althaea officinalis).
16. 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.

Synonyms

• (product): See Thesaurus:cheese
• (money): See Thesaurus:money

Antonyms

• (antonym(s) of “circuitry”): fill (“dummy pattern to increase pattern density”)

Hyponyms

• (dairy product): See Thesaurus:cheese

Derived terms

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: sis

Borrowings

Translations

See also

• cheese on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Cheese (recreational drug) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• butter
• cream
• milk
• turophile
• yogurt

Verb

cheese (third-person singular simple present cheeses, present participle cheesing, simple past and past participle cheesed)

1. To prepare curds for making cheese.
2. (technology) To make holes in a pattern of circuitry to decrease pattern density.
3. (slang) To smile excessively, as for a camera.

Derived terms

• cheese up

Etymology 2

Perhaps an alteration of cheers.

Interjection

cheese!

1. (photography) Said while being photographed, to give the impression of smiling.

Derived terms

• say cheese

Descendants

• → Icelandic: sís
• → Japanese: チーズ (chīzu)

Translations

Etymology 3

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".

Noun

cheese (uncountable)

1. (slang) Wealth, fame, excellence, importance.
2. (slang, dated, British India) The correct thing, of excellent quality; the ticket.

Derived terms

• big cheese
• sub-cheese

References

Etymology 4

Etymology unknown. Possibly an alteration of cease.

Verb

cheese (third-person singular simple present cheeses, present participle cheesing, simple past and past participle cheesed)

1. (slang) To stop; to refrain from.

2. (slang) To anger or irritate someone, usually in combination with "off".

Derived terms

• cheese it
• cheesed off

Etymology 5

From cheesy.

Verb

cheese (third-person singular simple present cheeses, present participle cheesing, simple past and past participle cheesed)

1. (Internet slang, gaming, transitive, intransitive) To use a controversial or unsporting tactic to gain an advantage (especially in a game.)
2. (video games, slang) To use an unconventional, all-in strategy to take one's opponent by surprise early in the game (especially for real-time strategy games).

Synonyms

• (use a surprise all-in strategy early in a game): rush, zerg

Middle English

Etymology 1

Noun

cheese

1. Alternative form of chese

Etymology 2

Verb

cheese

1. Alternative form of chesen