Cheese

Pronunciation

• enPR: chÄ“z, IPA: /t͡ʃiːz/
• Rhymes: -iːz

From Middle English chese, from Old English ċēse, ċīese ("cheese"), from or late Proto-Germanic *kāsijaz ("cheese"), from Latin cāseus ("cheese"), from Proto-Indo-European *kwat- ("to ferment, become sour"). Cognate with West Frisian tsiis ("cheese"), Low German Kees ("cheese"), Dutch kaas ("cheese"), German Käse ("cheese"). Also related to Old English hwaþerian ("to roar, foam, surge"), dialectal Swedish hvå ("foam"), Albanian kos ("yoghurt"), Latvian kūsāt ("to boil"), Old Church Slavonic квасъ (kvasŭ, "leaven; sour drink"), Sanskrit क्वथते (kváthate, "it boils").

Full definition of cheese

Noun

1. (uncountable) A dairy product made from curdled or cultured milk.
2. (countable) Any particular variety of cheese.
3. (countable) A piece of cheese, especially one moulded into a large round shape during manufacture.
4. (uncountable, colloquial) That which is melodramatic, overly emotional, or cliché, i.e. cheesy.
5. (uncountable, slang) Money.
6. (countable, UK) In skittles, the roughly ovoid object that is thrown to knock down the skittles.
7. (uncountable, slang, baseball) A fastball.
8. (uncountable, slang) A dangerous mixture of black tar heroin and crushed Tylenol PM tablets. The resulting powder resembles grated cheese and is snorted.
9. (vulgar, slang) Smegma.
10. (technology) Holed pattern of circuitry to decrease pattern density.
• 2006, US Patent 7458053, International Business Machines CorporationIt 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.
11. A mass of pomace, or ground apples, pressed together in the shape of a cheese.
12. The flat, circular, mucilaginous fruit of the dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia).
13. 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.

Hyponyms

Antonyms

• fill (dummy pattern to increase pattern density)

Derived terms

Verb

1. To prepare curds for making cheese.
2. (technology) To make holes in a pattern of circuitry to decrease pattern density.

Interjection

1. (photography) Said while being photographed, to give the impression of smiling.Say "cheese"! ... and there we are!

Probably from Persian چيز (čīz, "thing").

Noun

1. (slang) Wealth, fame, excellence, importance.

Derived terms

• big cheese
• sub-cheese

Verb

1. (slang) To stop; to refrain from.
2. (slang) To anger or irritate someone, usually in combination with "off".All this waiting around is really cheesing me off.

Derived terms

• cheese it
• cheesed off

From cheesy.

Verb

1. (gaming, slang) To use an unsporting tactic; to repeatedly use an attack which is overpowered or difficult to counterYou can cheese most of the game using certain exploits.
2. (gaming) To use an unconventional, all-in strategy to take one's opponent by surprise early in the game (especially for real-time strategy games)It's not every day you can see someone defend a cheese maneuver with a planetary fortress and win the game without using a single unit.

Synonyms

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