What does cheesiness mean?
Cheesiness is an informal noun describing the quality of being cheesy — that is, excessively sentimental, clichéd, or unsophisticated in a way that feels corny or overwrought. It is most often applied to films, songs, television, greeting cards, romantic gestures, and décor that rely on worn-out tropes or saccharine emotion rather than originality or restraint. A love scene with swelling strings and tearful confessions might be criticized for its cheesiness; so might a motivational poster or a wedding toast loaded with puns. The word carries a clearly negative connotation, though speakers sometimes deploy it with ironic affection, celebrating deliberate kitsch precisely because it refuses to take itself seriously. Derived from the adjective cheesy — which itself evolved from the food word into mid-twentieth-century slang for anything cheap or second-rate — cheesiness belongs to everyday conversation and casual reviews more than to formal prose, making it a handy shorthand for the line between heartfelt and hackneyed.
nounThe quality of being cheesy — sentimental, clichéd, or unsophisticated in a way that strikes the observer as corny or overwrought.
- The quality of being overly sentimental, clichéd, or corny, especially in entertainment, romance, or decoration.
- (Less common) The literal quality or flavor of cheese, or of tasting/smelling of cheese.
"The film's final scene was marred by a level of cheesiness that undercut its emotional power."
"Critics dismissed the movie's voice-over narration as pure cheesiness."
"He embraced the cheesiness of the greeting card, knowing she'd love it anyway."
Rarely pluralized; the noun is almost always used as an uncountable abstract noun referring to a general quality.
"Different eras of pop music have their own distinct cheesinesses."
A word built on 'cheese' — which has meant something cheap or inauthentic since at least mid-20th-century American slang, possibly from 'cheesy' as in cheap like processed cheese.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cheesiness
Cheesiness is formed from the adjective cheesy with the noun-forming suffix -ness, following a productive English pattern for turning adjectives into abstract nouns. The adjective cheesy originally referred simply to cheese, whose ultimate source is Latin caseus ('cheese'), borrowed into Old English as cīese and giving modern English its many dairy-related compounds. By the mid-twentieth century, chiefly in American slang, cheesy had acquired the figurative sense 'cheap, shoddy, or overly sentimental', possibly evoking mass-produced processed cheese as a symbol of the low-quality or artificial. The abstract noun cheesiness emerged naturally thereafter to name this quality, and it remains informal in tone today.
Word family
Usage notes
Informal to semi-formal register; almost always pejorative when applied to art, media, or romantic gestures, though it can carry affectionate irony among people who enjoy camp. Rarely used in formal academic criticism except when quoting popular usage.
Don't confuse with
Cheekiness means impudent boldness or saucy irreverence, whereas cheesiness means corny, clichéd sentimentality — the two sound similar but describe entirely different qualities.