Word.ws English Dictionary

tongue in cheek

tongue in cheek is the alternative form of tongue-in-cheek.

Meaning of tongue-in-cheek

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.

See all 3 meanings of tongue-in-cheek

Forms of tongue in cheek

comparativemore tongue in cheek
superlativemost tongue in cheek

Questions about tongue in cheek

What is tongue in cheek the alternative form of?
Tongue in cheek is the alternative form of tongue-in-cheek.

Words near tongue in cheek in the dictionary

  1. tongue firmly in cheek
  2. tongue grafting
  3. tongue graftings
  4. tongue grass
  5. tongue grasses
  6. tongue in cheek
  7. tongue in chic
  8. tongue job
  9. tongue jobs
  10. tongue kiss
  11. tongue kissed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tongue in cheek (page history and authors); 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.

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