Idiom
Tongue in cheek
If something is said tongue in cheek, it is meant as a joke or with gentle irony, not seriously.
How people use it
People use tongue in cheek for remarks, reviews, ads or titles that look serious on the surface but are really playful. As an adverb it usually has no hyphens (she said it tongue in cheek); before a noun it is hyphenated (a tongue-in-cheek comment). The tone is light and knowing, not cruel. It is easy to confuse with sarcasm, but tongue-in-cheek humor is usually friendlier and expects the listener to be in on the joke.
Also said: tongue-in-cheek, with tongue in cheek, with tongue firmly in cheek.
Examples
- The menu calls its tiny dessert 'a feast for giants,' which is clearly tongue in cheek.
- Omar wrote a tongue-in-cheek review praising the hotel's 'charming' broken elevator.
- When Grace called her messy desk an organized system, she was speaking tongue in cheek.
Where it comes from
The phrase comes from a facial gesture: pushing your tongue into your cheek, perhaps to hold back a smile or to show quiet mockery. Tobias Smollett's novel Roderick Random (1748) is often cited for an early use of the gesture as a sign of contempt. By the 1800s, 'tongue in cheek' meant saying something you did not really mean, and the playful, ironic sense is the one that survives today.
Check yourself
1. If a friend's wedding toast is described as tongue in cheek, what does that mean?
Answer: It was playful and not meant seriously. Tongue in cheek means joking or ironic. It is not about the mouth or about being unkind.
2. Which sentence uses the idiom correctly?
Answer: The article's tongue-in-cheek advice told readers to hide from Mondays.. The article's advice is playful, so tongue-in-cheek fits. The other sentences treat the phrase as a physical feeling.
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