cheeses

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of cheese.

   The board held a spread of soft and hard cheeses beside the fruit.

   Aged cheeses develop sharper flavors the longer they sit.

   Note

   A plural that only works for the countable meanings. Cheese the substance has none, so you eat cheese, not cheeses. Varieties do take one (soft and hard cheeses on a board), and so do whole pieces, especially the large molded rounds. Even the cliché sense stays uncountable: too much cheese, never too many cheeses. The same spelling also serves as the verb's he-and-she form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of cheese.

   She cheeses the hardest level by hiding in a corner the whole time.

   The referee's bad call cheeses off the entire home crowd.

   Note

   The form that follows he, she, it or a singular noun carries every meaning of the verb. These range from the cheesemaker preparing curds to the chip designer punching holes in dense circuitry. In slang it means grinning for a camera or quitting, and in gaming it means winning by a cheap, unsporting tactic. In the annoying sense it pairs with off: the call cheeses off the crowd.

3. 3
   interjectioneuphemistic

   Euphemistic form of Jesus.

   Cheeses, would you look at the size of that storm rolling in.

   He banged his shin on the table and yelled, "Cheeses, that hurt!"

   Note

   A minced oath keeps the sound and force of the exclamation Jesus, which can give offense, but swaps in a harmless everyday word. It suits the same moments of excitement or exasperation without sounding profane. It typically stands alone at the front of the sentence, set off by a comma, as in "Cheeses, that hurt!", and belongs to casual speech rather than writing.

4. 4
   nounplural

   Any of several plants of the genus Malva, known as common mallow.

   Like a roadside weed whose round, segmented fruits resemble miniature cheese wheels.

   Cheeses spread quickly through the disturbed soil of the abandoned lot.

   Country children once nibbled the green seed pods of cheeses growing in the hedgerows.

   Similarmallows

   Note

   A folk name taken from the fruit: the seed heads of the common mallows were thought to resemble rounds of cheese. The word is plural-only, so a single plant is not "a cheese." One speaks of cheeses spreading through a lot or growing in a hedgerow. The name also covers several species of Malva rather than a single one.

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