dude-fussing noun April 18, 2016 informal, humorous inefficient, unfocussed actions, designed to give the illusion of useful activity Are you familiar with dude-fussing? It’s when you go camping and someone feels a primal need to poke at the fire every 30 seconds. Read More ►.
The figurative idiom tongue-in-cheek means meant or expressed ironically or facetiously. The expression has origins in 18th-century England, and it originally referred to a common facial expression used to express contempt. Since then, the contempt-related connotations have mostly disappeared (along with the facial expression, as far as we can tell and the word mostly denotes irony and facetiousness. Anything said tongue-in-cheek is not to be taken at face value. Examples Tongue-in-cheek generally follows the rules for phrasal adjectives, but not always. When the phrase precedes the noun it modifies, it is usually hyphenated—for example: Clocks on her built-in bookcases are a tongue-in-cheek joke about her constant tardiness, he said. [ Los Angeles Times] The point of Spurlock’s tongue-in-cheek documentary is to show how omnipresent corporate interests and branding are in all forms of entertainment. [ Globe and Mail] But unlike most phrasal adjectives, tongue-in-cheek is often hyphenated even when it follows the noun it modifies, especially when it’s simply a synonym of sarcastic, sarcastically, ironic, or ironically: But while his tone is tongue-in-cheek, his point is clear enough. [ Financial Times] But this is done tongue-in-cheek, not seriously. [ Wired] A somewhat tongue-in-cheek adage attributed to Shackleton came to mind: Better to be a live donkey than a dead lion. [ New York Times] And many writers smartly omit the hyphens when tongue in cheek is an adjective phrase (rather than a phrasal adjective) with tongue and in cheek treated as separate grammatical units—for example: Lievremont had created headlines in the build-up to the game by stating, with tongue in cheek, his dislike for ‘insular’ England. [ Daily Mail] “ I wanted to be with her friends all the time and she wouldn’t let me,” he said, tongue in cheek. [ Forbes].
Home > American English Dictionary > tongue-in-cheek Your search found: tongue-in-cheek Usage examples Trends Definitions humorously ironic, mocking, or insincere ⇒ a tongue-in-cheek series of commercials for deodorant Example Sentences Including 'tongue-in-cheek' I could see her so clearly, trying not to laugh, eyes dancing while she made her witty, tongue-in-cheek recording. Patricia Gaffney THE SAVING GRACES (1999) Comments Log in to comment on this word. Do you need to know 'kwl' to be 'kwl'? ' Lucy Mangan reviews your February word submissions Join our newsletter All the latest wordy news, linguistic insights, offers and more. Train like a Scrabble champion Allan Simmons' 5 tips on learning words. Follow @collinsdict Latest New Word Submissions pedestrian scramble wabi sabi Czechia gastrique janky Fasika View More Related Terms 1 results (with) tongue in cheek Browse nearby words toner tonetic toney tong tonga Tongan tongs tongue tongue twister tongue-and-groove joint tongue-in-cheek tongue-lash tongue-tie tongue-tied -tongued tongueless tonguing tonic tonic accent tonic sol-fa tonicity All American words that begin with ' T'.
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