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PlainSpell

cheese

/t͡ʃiz/noun, verb, interjection

cheese is spelled C-H-E-E-S-E: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 37 times per million words in written English, the 2,618th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, cheese means “A dairy product made from curdled or cultured milk” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of cheese is cheeses; Wiktionary also lists cheesen (archaic).

How many letters and syllables are in cheese?

Letters6: C-H-E-E-S-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing37 times per million words; the 2,618th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Sounds like
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is cheese?

Cheese appears 37 times per million words in written English, the 2,618th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce cheese?

  • /t͡ʃiːz/
  • US /t͡ʃiz/

Cheese has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-cheese.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-cheese.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with cheese

Sounds like: qis (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with cheese?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as cheese from its last stressed vowel (/iz/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of cheese

  • cheeses plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • cheesing participle, present
  • cheesed participle, past
  • cheese!

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does cheese mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A dairy product made from curdled or cultured milk.

  2. 2

    Any particular variety of cheese.

  3. 3

    A piece of cheese, especially one moulded into a large round shape during manufacture.

  4. 4

    UKA thick variety of jam (fruit preserve), as distinguished from a thinner variety (sometimes called jelly)

  5. 5

    A substance resembling cream cheese, such as lemon cheese

  6. 6

    colloquialThat which is melodramatic, overly emotional, or cliché, i.e. cheesy.

  7. 7

    slangMoney.

  8. 8

    UKIn skittles, the roughly ovoid object that is thrown to knock down the skittles.

  9. 9

    slangWealth, fame, excellence, importance.

  10. 10

    BritishIndiadatedslangThe correct thing, of excellent quality; the ticket.

    These cheroots are the real cheese.

  11. 11

    The exploitation, or opportunity for exploitation, of an unintentional video game mechanic.

verb

  1. 1

    To prepare curds for making cheese.

  2. 2

    To make holes in a pattern of circuitry to decrease pattern density.

  3. 3

    slangTo smile excessively, as for a camera.

  4. 4

    slangTo stop; to refrain from.

    Cheese it! The cops!

  5. 5

    slangTo anger or irritate someone, usually in combination with "off".

    All this waiting around is really cheesing me off.

  6. 6

    To use a controversial or unsporting tactic to gain an advantage (especially in a game.)

    You can cheese most of the game using certain exploits.

  7. 7

    slangTo use an unconventional, all-in strategy to take one's opponent by surprise early in the game (especially for real-time strategy games).

interjection

  1. 1

    Said while being photographed, to give the impression of smiling.

    Say "cheese"! ... and there we are!

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate cheese?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of cheese: chz.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Cheese in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchfromage (dairy product), fric, pognon, flouze, oseille (slang: money), ouistiti (said while being photographed)
GermanKäse, Chääs, Kas, Kaas (dairy product), Spaghetti (said while being photographed)
Portuguesequeijo (dairy product), grana, bufunfa (slang: money), xis, giz (said while being photographed)
Spanishqueso (dairy product), patata, whisky (said while being photographed)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cheese come from?

From Middle English chese, from Anglian Old English ċēse, from Proto-West Germanic *kāsī, borrowed from Latin cāseus. Doublet of queso.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after cheese