[Name of a village in Huntingdonshire, on the Great North Road from London: see below.] Stilton cheese: a rich quality of cheese made at various places in Leicestershire; so called from having been originally largely sold to travellers at a coaching inn at Stilton.
1736. Bailey, Houshold Dict., s.v. Cheese, Stilton Cheese. Take two Gallons of morning milk [etc.].
1813. Byron, Lett., 3 Oct. Pray accept a Stilton cheese from me.
1904. Maud Wilder Goodwin, in Century Mag., Feb., 534/2. Well, I ’ll take you there sometime, and show you brass that is brass, all green in the creases, like Stilton cheese.
b. ellipt. as sb. = Stilton cheese. Also fig.
1835. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Parl. Sk.. Mark the air with which he gloats over that Stilton.
1867. Lowell, Study Wind., Gt. Publ. Character (1871), 70. We prefer a full, old-fashioned meal, with its side-dishes of spicy gossip, and its last relish, the Stilton of scandal, so it be not too high.
1913. Times, 9 Aug., 19/6. Cheese…. finest Cheshire and cheddar, 72s. to 74s.;… Stiltons, 10d. to 1s. per lb.
slang. 1859. Hotten’s Slang Dict., 102. ‘That’s the stilton,’ or ‘it is not the stilton,’ i.e. that is quite the thing, or that is not quite the thing;—polite rendering of ‘that is not the cheese.’
