Word.ws English Dictionary

cheek up

cheek up verb: to act disrespectfully toward (someone).

Verb

cheek up (third-person singular simple present cheeks up, present participle cheeking up, simple past and past participle cheeked up)

  1. (informal, transitive) To act disrespectfully toward (someone).
    • An 'uncle' later offered the young Horatio a position in his solicitor's practice but the stupid boy cheeked up his employer instead of apologizing after making a mistake and informed him that, 'To err is human, but to forgive is divine'.2015 02, Yvalanna Gregory, Marjie - The true story of an Edwardian girl, ShieldCrest, →ISBN, page 19
    • He hesitated for a moment before continuing, “But Reg was too cocky, way too cocky for his own good, and the way he cheeked up the governor on that morning before the execution only served to dig his own grave, as it were.2016 April 5, Ralph Spurrier, A Coin for the Hangman, Bookline & Thinker, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    cheek up to

Synonyms of cheek up

Forms of cheek up

third-person singular presentcheeks up
present participlecheeking up
past participlecheeked up
pastcheeked up

Origin of cheek up

See cheek (“impudence, impertinence”).

Questions about cheek up

What does cheek up mean?
Cheek up means to act disrespectfully toward (someone).
What part of speech is cheek up?
Cheek up is a verb.
What is the past tense of cheek up?
The past tense of cheek up is cheeked up.

Words near cheek up in the dictionary

  1. cheek pouches
  2. cheek teeth
  3. cheek to cheek
  4. cheek to jowl
  5. cheek tooth
  6. cheek up
  7. cheek up to
  8. cheek-bone
  9. cheek-bones
  10. cheek-by-jowl
  11. cheek-to-jowl

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cheek up (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.

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