Word.ws English Dictionary

like cheese at fourpence

like cheese at fourpence adjective: of a person: waiting idly or timewasting.

Adjective

like cheese at fourpence

  1. (idiomatic) Of a person: waiting idly or timewasting.
    • Don't stand there like cheese at fourpence.1989, Colin Dunne, Hooligan, page 38
    • "Why are you standing there like cheese at fourpence?"2003, Rachel Wyatt, Time's Reach, page 75

Origin of like cheese at fourpence

From the mill towns of Lancashire, where fourpence was considered expensive for cheese and hence cheese for sale at that price would not be bought.

Questions about like cheese at fourpence

What does like cheese at fourpence mean?
Like cheese at fourpence means of a person: waiting idly or timewasting.
What part of speech is like cheese at fourpence?
Like cheese at fourpence is an adjective.

Words near like cheese at fourpence in the dictionary

  1. like breaking sticks
  2. like buggery
  3. like butter on a bald monkey
  4. like candy
  5. like cats and dogs
  6. like cheese at fourpence
  7. like clockwork
  8. like crack
  9. like crazy
  10. like death warmed over
  11. like death warmed up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like cheese at fourpence (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-like cheese at fourpence.ogg.

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