Cheek

subs. (colloquial).—1.  Insolence; jaw; e.g., ‘none of your cheek’ or ‘chat’ and ‘none of your jaw.’ Equivalents are LIP, CHAT, IMPERANCE, MOUTH, CHIN, CHIRRUP, and NINE SHILLINGS; the last a corruption of ‘nonchalance!’ Among foreign equivalents may be mentioned the French avoir un toupet de bœuf; and the Spanish adjectives cariraido (‘impudent’) and desollado (from desollar, ‘to skin, flay’); desuellacaras (m.; an impudent, shameless person); paparrucha (f. impertinence).

  1840.  MARRYAT, Poor Jack, xxii. The man, who was a sulky, saucy sort of chap … gives CHEEK.

  1848.  J. MITCHELL, Jail Journal, July 20. I once asked … what fault a man had committed who was flogged…. ‘For giving CHEEK, sir.’  [M.]

  1884.  G. MOORE, Mummer’s Wife (1887), p. 133. If he gives me any of his CHEEK I’ll knock him down.

  2.  Audacity; confidence; impudence; ‘brass’; ‘face.’ Formerly ‘brow’ was used in the same sense.—(See quot., 1642.)

  1642.  FULLER, The Holy State and the Prophane State, bk. IV., ch. xi. They were men of more BROW than brain, being so ambitious to be known, that they had rather be hissed down, than not come upon the stage.

  1851.  H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I., p. 471. They [the Crocusses] ’d actually have the CHEEK to put a blister on a cork leg. Ibid., p. 404. Provided with … a noggin o’ rum to ‘give him CHEEK,’ and make him ‘speak up’ to his victims.

  1882.  Daily News, Oct. 10, p. 5, col. 6. Of this fact, I know no more signal instance than the seizing of the Citadel of Cairo. As I stood on the spot the other day I realised for the first time the—if you will pardon me the use of a vulgar but expressive colloquialism—astounding CHEEK of the feat.

  1889.  Answers, p. 59, col. 2. The whole suggestion savoured so much of what our Transatlantic brothers call MONUMENTAL CHEEK, that the Duke hardly knew what to say, or what emotions to express.

  1890.  Athenæum, Feb. 22, p. 253, col. 2. In various disguises Miss Palmer sings, dances, and exhibits her powers of coquetry and CHEEK.

  Verb.—To address a person saucily.

  1851.  H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, I., p. 452. (They) persuaded me to go and beg with them, but I couldn’t CHEEK it.

  1857.  DICKENS, Our Vestry, in Reprinted Pieces, p. 292. Dogginson … informed another gentleman … that if he ‘CHEEK’D him,’ he would resort to the extreme measure of knocking his blessed head off.

  1890.  The Saturday Review, Feb. 1, p. 151, col. 1. Not only was Dick always ready to CHEEK his employer, and by his own account usually capable of getting the better of him, but he was on the same sort of terms with his pupils.

  TO ONE’S OWN CHEEK, phr. (colloquial).—To one’s own share; all to oneself. Sometimes used in the sense of allowance, i.e., ‘Where’s my CHEEK?’

  1841.  LEVER, Charles O’Malley, ch. lxxxviii. And though he consumed something like a prize on to HIS OWN CHEEK, he at length had to call for cheese.

  1855.  Punch, vol. XXVIII., p. 10. [From day to day, for near a week.]

  TO CHEEK UP, verbal phr. (colloquial).— = CHEEK, to answer saucily.—See CHEEK, verb.

  1867.  North Briton, June 5. ‘Royal Dramatic College.’ We shall not soon forget seeing, during our visit to the Fair last July, a number of ladies dressed up as jockeys, confined, like so many chattering monkeys, in a cage, CHEEKING UP to gentlemen, selling them ‘k’rect cards,’ etc.