vulgo, cherry-bums, subs. (military).—1. The Eleventh Hussars. [From their crimson overalls.] Also CHERRY-BREECHES and CHERRY-PICKERS.
1865. Notes and Queries, 3 S., vii., p. 49. 11th Hussars—CHERUBIMS and CHERRY PICKERS, having had some men taken while on out-post duty in a fruit garden in Spain.
1871. A. FORBES, My Experiences of the War between France and Germany, II., 149. When [Lord Cardigan] commanded the ‘CHERRY BREECHES’ there were generally more sore backs among them than in any other regiment in the service.
1871. Chambers’s Journal, Dec. 23, p. 802. The 11th Hussars, the ‘CHERUBIMS and CHERRY PICKERS.’
2. (common).—Peevish children. [A facetious allusion to a passage in the Te Deum—‘To Thee cherubin and seraphin continually do cry.’] Quoted by Grose [1785].
3. (common).—Chorister boys. [Either founded on the allusion quoted in sense 2, or in reference to the fact that little more than the heads of choristers is visible to the general congregation.]
TO BE IN THE CHERUBIMS, phr. (old).—To be in good humour; in the clouds; unsubstantial; fanciful.
1542. UDALL, The Apophthegmes of Erasmus, p. 139. Diogenes mocking soch quidificall trifles, that wer al IN THE CHERUBINS, said: Sir Plato, your table and your cuppe I see very well, but as for your tabletee, & your cupitee, I see none soche.
