Cheeks

How to spell cheeks

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce cheeks

What does cheeks mean?

1. nounThe two soft, rounded sides of the face below the eyes.

Cheeks in a sentence

• The cold wind left her cheeks red and stinging.

• Tears rolled down his cheeks during the wedding speech.

Where does cheeks come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English ceace or cece, which named the jaw and the fleshy side of the face. It belongs to the Germanic family of languages, with related forms appearing in Old Frisian and Middle Dutch words for the jaw and cheek. For much of its early history the word leaned toward meaning the jawbone itself before it settled on the soft side of the face that we now picture. The spelling looks tidy to modern eyes, but the double letter 'ee' simply records the long vowel sound that the older spelling once captured with single vowels. By the medieval period the figurative sense had also grown, so 'cheek' came to suggest bold or impudent talk, the idea behind calling someone cheeky. The plural form adds only a straightforward -s, making it one of the gentler spellings in the language.

How the word is built

• cheek (from Old English ceace: jaw, cheek)
• -s (plural suffix)