Word.ws English Dictionary

tongue-in-cheek

tongue-in-cheek adjective: not intended seriously; jocular or humorous.

Adjective

tongue-in-cheek (comparative more tongue-in-cheek, superlative most tongue-in-cheek)

  1. (idiomatic) Not intended seriously; jocular or humorous.
    • He gave a tongue-in-cheek explanation of why the sky was blue, offering a theory about some primordial discount on light blue paint.
    • It was in this era, too, that author and Scotland the Brave songwriter Cliff Hanley penned The Glasgow Underground, a tongue-in-cheek love letter to the Subway in song.2021 December 29, Conrad Landin, “Glasgow Subway: a city institution”, in RAIL, number 947, page 45

Adverb

tongue-in-cheek (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) With contempt.
  2. With irony.
    • He portrayed them tongue-in-cheek as great lawgivers, as Solons.

tongue-in-cheek meaning in Indonesian

tongue-in-cheek in Indonesian

witty, jocular, humorous
jenaka

Synonyms of tongue-in-cheek

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of tongue-in-cheek

Forms of tongue-in-cheek

comparativemore tongue-in-cheek
superlativemost tongue-in-cheek
alternative formtongue in cheek

Origin of tongue-in-cheek

This phrase alludes to the facial expression created by putting one's tongue in one's cheek. The term first appeared in print in 1828, but it isn't entirely clear that it was used with the modern, rather than a literal, sense. A later citation from Richard Barham is unambiguous.

Words formed from tongue-in-cheek

Questions about tongue-in-cheek

What does tongue-in-cheek mean?
Tongue-in-cheek means not intended seriously; jocular or humorous.
What is tongue-in-cheek in Indonesian?
Tongue-in-cheek in Indonesian is jenaka. See Tongue-in-cheek meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is tongue-in-cheek?
Tongue-in-cheek can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near tongue-in-cheek in the dictionary

  1. tongue-clacker
  2. tongue-clackers
  3. tongue-fence
  4. tongue-fencer
  5. tongue-fencing
  6. tongue-in-cheek
  7. tongue-in-chic
  8. tongue-lash
  9. tongue-lashed
  10. tongue-lashes
  11. tongue-lashing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tongue-in-cheek (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-au-tongue-in-cheek.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-tongue-in-cheek.wav.

Cite this entry: “tongue-in-cheek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tongue-in-cheek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.