Day: February 5, 2014

“Cheek” in the sense of impudence is an old term. The earliest quotation in Sir James Murray’s dictionary is from Captain Marryat (1840). But it has lately been found in the sixteenth century records of Galway in the west of Ireland. The municipal rulers of that city decreed that any person giving “cheek” to the mayor should “forfeit 100 shillings and have his body put into prison.”