I. ˈchēz noun
( -s )
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English chese, from Old English cēse; akin to Old High German & Old Saxon kāsi; all from a prehistoric West Germanic word borrowed from Latin caseus; akin to Old Slavic kvasŭ sour dough, Old English hwatherian to foam, Old Norse hvethnir milker, Gothic hwatho foam, Sanskrit kvathati he boils
1.
a. : curd that has been separated from whey, consolidated by molding for soft cheese or subjected to pressure for hard cheese, and ripened for use as a food
b. : a cake of this food typically in the shape of a wheel or of a flat cylinder
c. : cheddar
2. : something shaped like a cheese: as
a. : a mass of pomace in a cider press
b. : a package in which yarn is commonly wound
c. : a batch of raw fiber stock as it leaves the dyeing kettle
d. : skittle ball
e. : a compressed mass of tobacco to be cut up by machine into smoking or chewing tobacco
3. : something like cheese in texture (as soft wood or paraffin wax saturated with oil) or odor — often used as a generalized term of disapproval
surveys, generally speaking, are the cheese — Atlantic Bulletin
a lawyer simply has to convince the poor cheeses on the jury — Sinclair Lewis
4. : dwarf mallow ; also : the flat fruits of the dwarf mallow or of the cheeseflower — usually used in plural
II. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
1. : to form (a rope end) into a tight neat coil — usually used with down
2. : to wind (yarn) onto a cheese : spool
III. transitive verb
( -ed/-ing/-s )
Etymology: origin unknown
slang : to leave off : stop
•
- cheese it
IV. noun
( -s )
Etymology: perhaps from Urdu chīz thing, from Persian
1. slang : something first-rate
this car is certainly the cheese
2. slang : someone important : boss
thought himself a bit of a cheese