cheek
/t͡ʃiːk/
cheek noun: the soft skin on each side of the face, below the eyes; the outer surface of the sides of the oral cavity.
Noun
cheek (countable and uncountable, plural cheeks)
- The soft skin on each side of the face, below the eyes; the outer surface of the sides of the oral cavity.
- There are some shrewd contents in yon same paper, / That steals the colours from Bassanio's cheek: / Some dear friend dead; else nothing in the world / Could turn so much the constitution / Of any constant man. What, worse and worse!— […]c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- Synonyms:
- wang
- The lower part of the buttocks that is often exposed beneath very brief underwear, swimwear, or extremely short shorts.
- Synonyms:
- arsecheek, asscheek, butt cheek, nether cheek
- Impudence.
- You’ve got some cheek, asking me for money!
- Synonyms:
- impertinence, impudence, brass neck, nerve, sass, chutzpah
- One of the genae, flat areas on the sides of a trilobite's cephalon.
- One of the pieces of a machine, or of timber or stonework, that form corresponding sides or a similar pair.
- the cheeks of a vice
- the cheeks of a gun carriage
- The branches of a bridle bit.
- Either side of an axehead.
- The middle section of a flask, made so that it can be moved laterally, to permit the removal of the pattern from the mould.
Verb
cheek (third-person singular simple present cheeks, present participle cheeking, simple past and past participle cheeked)
- To be impudent towards.
- Don't cheek me, you little rascal!
- We did not like him much because he kissed us and was preachy when we cheeked pretty Tallie, who did not rule over us as Dede did […]1942, Emily Carr, “Sunday”, in The Book of Small, Toronto, Ont.: Oxford University Press, →OCLC
- To pull a horse's head back toward the saddle using the cheek strap of the bridle.
- Such horses might need to be "cheeked" for a while.1964, John Hendrix, If I Can Do It Horseback: A Cow-Country Sketchbook, page 183
- Thurman caught the bridle headstall and cheeked the horse's head near his left knee when he swung aboard.2009, Dusty Richards, The Sundown Chaser
- To put or keep something in one’s cheek.
- The squirrel cheeked some nuts before heading back to its nest.
Proper noun capitalized: Cheek
Cheek
- A pre-Norman surname.
- Titusvlle's Aleah Davis passes around the guard of Rockledge player Tatyana Cheek during Tuesday's game.2014 November 19, “Gallery: Titusville vs. Rockledge girls basketball”, in Florida Today, archived from the original on 19 Dec 2025
- An unincorporated community in Carter County, Oklahoma, United States.
- An unincorporated community in Jefferson County, Texas, United States, established by John R. Cheek.
cheek meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
cheek in Hindi
- part of face
- गाल gāl
cheek in Tamil
- part of face
- கன்னம் kaṉṉam
cheek in Marathi
- part of face
- गाल gāl
cheek in Urdu
- part of face
- گال gāl
More languagesFewer languages
- cheek in Bengali
- গাল gal
- cheek in Telugu
- చెంప cempa
- cheek in Malayalam
- കവിൾ kaviḷ, കന്നം kannaṁ, ചെള്ള ceḷḷa, ചെപ്പി ceppi
- cheek in Kannada
- ಗಲ್ಲ galla
- cheek in Punjabi
- ਗੱਲ੍ਹ gallh, ਰੁਖ਼ਸਾਰ ruxsār
- cheek in Gujarati
- ગાલ gāl
- cheek in Sanskrit
- गण्ड gaṇḍa, कपोल kapola, see Thesaurus:गल्ल
- cheek in Sinhala
- කම්මුල kammula
- cheek in Assamese
- গাল gal
- cheek in Nepali
- गाला gālā
- cheek in Pashto
- باړخو bāṛxú
- cheek in Tagalog
- pisngi
- cheek in Arabic
- خَدّ ḵadd, وَجْنَة wajna
- cheek in Malay
- pipi
- cheek in Indonesian
- pipi
- cheek in Thai
- แก้ม gɛ̂ɛm
- cheek in Vietnamese
- má, đít
- cheek in Myanmar
- ပါး pa:
- Dhivehi
- ކޯ kō
Examples of cheek in a sentence
- We cheeked him over the fence until he chased us off, and then we went down to the Walton Road and cheeked the carters, keeping on the other side of the hedge so.1948, George Orwell, Coming Up for Air:
- 'Well, I do live next door,' I said, in no way antagonistically, and yet I immediately felt as if I had cheeked the headmistress.2013, Louise Candlish, The Disappearance of Emily Marr:
- He cheeked the horse and stepped into the saddle.2012, J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight: Cowman and Plainsman:
Synonyms of cheek
1 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of cheek
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | cheeks |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | cheeks |
| present participle | cheeking |
| past participle | cheeked |
| past | cheeked |
Origin of cheek
From Middle English cheeke, cheke, cheoke, choke, from Old English ċēce, ċēace, ċēoce (“cheek; jaw”), from Proto-West Germanic *kākā, *keukā (“jaw, cheek”), from Proto-Germanic *kēkǭ, *keukǭ (“jaw; palate; pharynx”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *ǵyewh₁- (“to chew”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sooke (“cheek”), West Frisian tsjeak (“jaw”), Dutch kaak (“jaw; cheek”), Swedish käke (“jaw; jowl”), Norwegian kjake (“jaw”), Old Norse kók (“mouth; gullet”).
Words formed from cheek
- bench cheek
- booty cheek
- butment cheek
- butt-cheek
- cheek-bone
- cheek bone
- cheekbone
- cheek-by-jowl
- cheek by jowl
- cheeked
- cheeker
- cheek for chowl
- cheekful
- cheek guard
- cheekie
- cheekini
- cheekless
- cheekpiece
- cheek plate
- cheek pouch
- cheek to cheek
- cheek to jowl
- cheek-to-jowl
- cheek tooth
- cheeky
- chock full
- doorcheek
- face cheek
- fixed cheek
- free cheek
- slapped cheek syndrome
- spiny-cheek sleeper
- tongue firmly in cheek
- tongue in cheek
- tongue-in-cheek
- to one's own cheek
- tuftedcheek
- turn the other cheek
- with one's tongue in one's cheek
- with tongue in cheek
- cheek it out
- cheek it through
- cheek up
- cheek up to
Phrases with cheek
Words that rhyme with cheek
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- seek
- bespeak
- pique
- tweak
- reek
- sleek
- geek
- peek
- squeak
- week
- wreak
- boutique
- clique
- creek
- forspeak
- gleek
- unique
- bleak
- cacique
- creak
- critique
- deke
- eek
- eke
- fleak
- on fleek
- respeak
- Tajik
- teak
- technique
- tongue-in-chic
- chic
- cleek
- desqueak
- leek
- malik
- meek
- midweek
- misspeak
- physique
- pratique
- shriek
- speke
- streek
- Zeke
- -speak
- Adam's Peak
- advertique
Questions about cheek
- What does cheek mean?
- Cheek means the soft skin on each side of the face, below the eyes; the outer surface of the sides of the oral cavity.
- What is cheek in Hindi?
- Cheek in Hindi is गाल (gāl). See Cheek meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use cheek in a sentence?
- We cheeked him over the fence until he chased us off, and then we went down to the Walton Road and cheeked the carters, keeping on the other side of the hedge so.
- What part of speech is cheek?
- Cheek can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce cheek?
- Cheek is pronounced /t͡ʃiːk/.
- What is the plural of cheek?
- The plural of cheek is cheeks.
Words near cheek in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cheek (page history and authors); Cheek (page history and authors); കന്നം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ਗੱਲ੍ਹ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); গাল (Assamese) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-cheek.ogg.
Cite this entry: “cheek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cheek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.