Cheshire cat

American

noun

a constantly grinning cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

idioms

grin like a Cheshire cat, to smile or grin inscrutably.

Cheshire cat Cultural

A cat with an enormous grin encountered by Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. The cat tends to disappear, leaving only its smile hanging in the air.

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“Smiling like a Cheshire cat” refers to anyone with a conspicuous and long-lasting smile.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The conductor is petite with large, expressive eyes and a Cheshire cat’s smile.

From Los Angeles Times

About one hundred yards up that hill ran the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway tracks, where black and navy-blue trains with a yellow Cheshire cat painted on them rumbled through town twice daily, morning and evening.

From Literature

Like the steward, he is grinning like a Cheshire cat today.

From BBC

Val and I were talking about when our respective sons were toddlers, throwing from a crib a mountain of Beanie Babies while smiling like Cheshire cats.

From Salon

“That may have been discussed as one of several possibilities,” the prosecutor replied with a Cheshire cat grin.

From Literature

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023