section_path: Cultural attitudes/Figurative expressions
section_name: Figurative expressions
paragraph_text: Figurative expressions
  
  In the 19th century, "cheese" was used as a figurative way of saying "the proper thing"; this usage comes from Urdu cheez "a thing", from Persian cheez, from Old Persian...ciš-ciy "something". The term "cheese" in this sense was "icked up by British in India by 1818 and used in the sense of "a big thing", for example in the expression "he's the real cheez". The expression "big cheese" was attested in use in 1914 to mean an "important person"; this is likely from American English. The expression "to cut a big cheese" was used to mean "to look important"; this figurative expression referred to the huge wheels of cheese displayed by cheese retailers as a publicity stunt. The phrase "cut the cheese" became an American slang term meaning to flatulate. The word "cheese" has had the meaning of "an ignorant, stupid person".
  
  Other figurative meanings involve the word "cheese" used as a verb. To "cheese" is recorded as meaning to "stop (what one is doing), run off", in 1812 (this was "thieves' slang"). To be "cheesed off" means to be annoyed. The expression " say 'cheese' " in a photograph-taking context (when the photographer wants the people to smile for the photo), which means "smile", dates from 1930 (the word was probably chosen because the "ee" encourages people to make a smile). The verb "cheese" was used as slang for "be quiet" in the early 19th century in Britain. The fictional "...notion that the moon is made of green cheese as a type of a ridiculous assertion is from 1520s". The figurative expression "to make cheeses" is an 1830s phrase referring to schoolgirls who amuse themselves by "...wheeling rapidly so one's petticoats blew out in a circle then dropping down so they came to rest inflated and resembling a wheel of cheese". In video game slang "to cheese it" means to win a game by using a strategy that requires minimal skill and knowledge or that exploits a glitch or flaw in game design.
  
  The adjective "cheesy" can be used literally, to mean "like cheese". In the late 19th century, medical writers used the term "to describe morbid substances found in tumors, decaying flesh, etc." It has a figurative sense, meaning "cheap, inferior"; this use "... is attested from 1896, perhaps originally U.S. student slang". In the late 19th century in British slang, "cheesy" meant "fine, showy"; this use is attested to in the 1850s. This may have been inverted to give a modern usage, where is a pejorative term.