Word.ws English Dictionary

turn the other cheek

turn the other cheek verb: to accept punishment or injury without retaliating.

Verb

turn the other cheek (third-person singular simple present turns the other cheek, present participle turning the other cheek, simple past and past participle turned the other cheek)

  1. (idiomatic) To accept punishment or injury without retaliating.

Forms of turn the other cheek

third-person singular presentturns the other cheek
present participleturning the other cheek
past participleturned the other cheek
pastturned the other cheek

Origin of turn the other cheek

From the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus rejected the eye for an eye philosophy in favour of a more humble approach.

Questions about turn the other cheek

What does turn the other cheek mean?
Turn the other cheek means to accept punishment or injury without retaliating.
What part of speech is turn the other cheek?
Turn the other cheek is a verb.
What is the past tense of turn the other cheek?
The past tense of turn the other cheek is turned the other cheek.

Words near turn the other cheek in the dictionary

  1. turn the corner
  2. turn the dial
  3. turn the frown upside down
  4. turn the knife
  5. turn the knife in the wound
  6. turn the other cheek
  7. turn the other way
  8. turn the page
  9. turn the scale
  10. turn the screw
  11. turn the screws

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: turn the other 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-turn the other cheek.ogg.

Cite this entry: “turn the other cheek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/turn_the_other_cheek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.