Swiss cheese

noun

"swiss-cheese" is a 11-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“Swiss cheese” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
12
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Synonym of Emmentaler, a Swiss cheese with many holes

Corpus desk

Index EN-swiss-cheese · Swiss cheese · English

Swiss cheese · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for Swiss cheese
PropertyValue
HeadwordSwiss cheese
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “Swiss cheese” in English

Swiss cheesefalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

Swiss cheese is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for Swiss cheese, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is Swiss cheese, spelled S-W-I-S-S- -C-H-E-E-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Synonym of Emmentaler, a Swiss cheese with many holes
  2. 2
    By extension, any cheese which resembles Emmentaler, especially ones with holes.
  3. 3
    Something that is full of holes or vulnerabilities.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how Swiss cheese appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. "If people really knew the extent to which the Internet is Swiss cheese, they would freak out," Fancher says. As with employee crime, the best protections against attacks by outsiders are matters of common sense, say security experts.
  2. […] surprise and frustration when systems ultimately decay into a block of security Swiss cheese.

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "Swiss cheese"?
"Swiss cheese" is spelled S-W-I-S-S- -C-H-E-E-S-E.
What does "Swiss cheese" mean?
As a noun, "Swiss cheese" means: Synonym of Emmentaler, a Swiss cheese with many holes
What language does "Swiss cheese" come from?
"Swiss cheese" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list