Bronx cheer

UK/ˌbɹɒŋks ˈt͡ʃɪə/US/ˌbɹɑŋks ˈt͡ʃɪɹ/

Bronx cheer noun: synonym of raspberry (“a sound intended to resemble flatulence made by blowing air out of the mouth while the tongue is protruding from and pressed against the lips, used humorously or to express disdain or scorn”).

Noun

Bronx cheer (plural Bronx cheers)

(US, idiomatic) Synonym of raspberry (“a sound intended to resemble flatulence made by blowing air out of the mouth while the tongue is protruding from and pressed against the lips, used humorously or to express disdain or scorn”).
- Princeton's defeat by Annapolis is regretted here as the Staggs say if they win in the East it won't be held as such-a-much, whereas if Chicago loses the East will grin and give Western football the jolly old Bronx cheer.1921 October 19, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C., page 16, columns 4–5
- There is no reason, no sound reason—forgetting once more the beer-weeping—why our restaurants should not step out and claim the world's championship, give the homemade product the Bronx cheer, and have done with all this nonsense.1937 April, Donald Hough, “Keep the Home Pies Burning: There’s Nothing so Soggy, so Flavorless or Indigestible as Home-cooked Dinner on the Farm”, in Arnold Gingrich, editor, Esquire: The Magazine...
Synonyms:

razz, razzberry, raspberry

Examples of Bronx cheer in a sentence

Or you could write a few words to him." / "A Bronx cheer on you." / "It's my letter," Teddy said. / "I don't care who writes it," said Newman.1973, Bernard Malamud, “The Letter”, in Rembrandt’s Hat, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 1986, →ISBN, page 105:
The original ending [of Charles Ives's Symphony No. 2] is preferable; the final dissonance in the published version is a Bronx cheer completely out of the spirit of the rest of the work.1990, J. Peter Burkholder, “‘Quotation’ and Paraphrase in Ives’s Second Symphony”, in Joseph Kerman, editor, Music at the Turn of Century...
As I walked up to the stage, numerous members of the audience recognized me and mostly yelled out, "Good luck," though there were some Bronx cheers.2014, Doug Kass, “Buffett Watch”, in Doug Kass on the Market: A Life on the Street, Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 409:

Synonyms of Bronx cheer

Forms of Bronx cheer

plural	Bronx cheers

Origin of Bronx cheer

Believed to originate from the making of the sound during sporting and other events in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, USA.

Questions about Bronx cheer

What does Bronx cheer mean?: Bronx cheer means synonym of raspberry (“a sound intended to resemble flatulence made by blowing air out of the mouth while the tongue is protruding from and pressed against the lips, used humorously or to express disdain or scorn”).
How do you use Bronx cheer in a sentence?: Or you could write a few words to him." / "A Bronx cheer on you." / "It's my letter," Teddy said. / "I don't care who writes it," said Newman.
What part of speech is Bronx cheer?: Bronx cheer is a noun.
How do you pronounce Bronx cheer?: Bronx cheer is pronounced /ˌbɹɒŋks ˈt͡ʃɪə/ (UK).
What is the plural of Bronx cheer?: The plural of Bronx cheer is Bronx cheers.

Words near Bronx cheer in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: Bronx cheer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-Bronx cheer.ogg.

Cite this entry: “Bronx cheer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bronx_cheer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.