Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CHEAT'A-BLE-NESS, n.

Liability to be cheated. – Hammond.

CHEAT'-BREAD, n.

Fine bread purchased, or not made in the family. [Little used.]

CHEAT'ED, pp.

Defrauded by deception.

CHEAT'ER, n.

One who practices a fraud in commerce.

CHEAT'ING, n.

The act of defrauding by deceitful arts.

CHEAT'ING, ppr.

Defrauding by deception; imposing on.

CHEAT'ING-LY, adv.

In a cheating manner.

CHECK, n.

1. A stop; hinderance; rebuff; sudden restraint, or continued restraint; curb; control; government.
2. That which stops or restrains, as reproof, reprimand, rebuke, slight, or disgust, fear, apprehension, a person; any stop or obstruction. – Shak. Dryden. Clarendon.
3. In falconry, when a hawk forsakes her proper game, to follow rooks, pies, or other fowls, that cross her in her flight. – Bailey. Encyc.
4. The correspondent cipher of a bank note; a corresponding indenture; any counter-register. – Johnson.
5. A term in chess, when one party obliges the other either to move or guard his king.
6. An order for money, drawn on a banker or on the cashier of a bank, payable to the bearer. This is a sense derived from that in definition 4.
7. In popular use, checkered cloth; check, for checkered. Check or check-roll, a roll or book containing the names of persons who are attendants and in the pay of a king or great personage, as domestic servants. – Bailey. Encyc. Clerk of the check, in the British King's household, has the check and control of the yeomen of the guard, and all the ushers belonging to the royal family, the care of the watch, &c. – Bailey. Encyc. Clerk of the check, in the British Royal Dock-yards, is an officer who keeps a register of all the men employed on board his majesty's ships and vessels, and of all the artificers in the service of the navy, at the port where he is settled.

CHECK, v.i.

1. To stop; to make a stop; with at. The mind checks at any vigorous undertaking. – Locke.
2. To clash or interfere. I have to check with business. – Bacon.
3. To strike with repression. – Dryden. [These applications are not frequent.]

CHECK, v.t. [Fr. echec, plur. echecs, which we have changed into chess; Sp. xaque, a move at chess; xaque de mate, check-mate; Port. xaque, a check; xagoate, a rebuke. Sp. and Port. xaquima, a halter; It. scacco, the squares of a chess-board; scacchi, chess-men; scacco-matto, check-mate; scaccato, checkered; Low L. scaccarium, an exchequer, Fr. echiquier; G. schach, chess; schachmatt, check-mate; D. schaak, chess; schaak-mat, check-mate; Dan. skak, chess, crooked, curving; skak-mat, check-mate; skakrer, to barter, chaffer, chop and change; Sw. schach, chess; schach-matt, check-mate; Russ. schach, check, chess; schach-mat, check-mate. In Spanish, xaque, zeque, is an old man, a shaik, and xaco, a jacket. These latter words seem to be the Ar. شَاحَ shaich, or شَاخَ; the latter is rendered to grow old, to be old, to blame or rebuke, under which we find shaik; the former signifies to use diligence, quasi, to bend to or apply; also, to abstain or turn aside. In Arabic we find also شَكَّ shakka, to doubt, hesitate, halt, and in Hebrew the same word שכך signifies to still, allay, sink, stop or check, to obstruct or hedge; שך a hedge. We have, in these words, clear evidence of the manner in which several modern nations express the Shemitic ש, or ش.]

1. To stop; to restrain; to hinder; to curb. It signifies to put an entire stop to motion, or to restrain its violence, and cause an abatement; to moderate.
2. To rebuke; to chide or reprove. – Shak.
3. To compare any paper with its counterpart or with a cipher, with a view to ascertain its authenticity; to compare corresponding papers; to control by a counter-register.
4. In seamanship, to ease off a little of a rope, which is too stiffly extended; also, to stopper the cable. – Mar. Dict.

CHECK'ED, or CHECKT, pp.

Stopped; restrained; repressed; curbed; moderated; controlled; reprimanded.

CHECK'ER, n.

1. One who checks or restrains; a rebuker.
2. A chess-board.

CHECK'ER, or CHECK'ER-WORK, n.

Work varied alternately as to its colors or materials; work consisting of cross lines.

CHECK'ER, v.t. [from check, or perhaps directly from the Fr. echiquier, a chess-board. Norm. escheqir, or chekere, exchequer.]

1. To variegate with cross lines; to form into little squares, like a chess-board, by lines or stripes of different colors. Hence,
2. To diversify; to variegate with different qualities, scenes, or events. Our minds are, as it were, checkered with truth and falsehood. – Addison.

CHECK'ERS, n. [plur.]

A common game on a checkered board.

CHECK'ING, ppr.

Stopping; curbing; restraining; moderating; controlling; rebuking.

CHECK'LESS, a.

That cannot be checked, or restrained.

CHECK'-MATE, n. [See Check. Mate is from the root of the Sp. and Port. matar, to kill. Ar. Ch. Syr. Heb. Eth. Sam. מות moth, to die, to kill.]

1. The movement on a chess-board or in the game of chess that kills the opposite men, or hinders them from moving, so that the game is finished.
2. Defeat; overthrow. – Spenser.

CHECK'-MATE, v.t.

To finish. – Skelton.

CHECK'-MA-TED, pp.

Stopped in the game of chess.

CHECK'-MA-TING, ppr.

Making a last move in chess.

CHECK'Y, n.

In heraldry, a border that has more than two rows of checkers, or when the bordure or shield is checkered, like a chess-board. – Bailey. Encyc.

CHEEK, n. [Sax. ceac, ceoca; D. kaak; this is probably the same word as jaw, Fr. joue, Arm. gaved, javed, connected with jaoga, chaguein, to chaw, or chew, for the words chin, cheek, and jaw, are confounded, the same word which, in one dialect, signifies the cheek, in another signifies the jaw. Gena in Latin is the English chin.]

1. The side of the face below the eyes on each side.
2. Among mechanics, cheeks are those pieces of a machine which form corresponding sides, or which are double and alike; as, the cheeks of a printing-press, which stand perpendicular and support the three sommers, the head, shelves and winter; the cheeks of a turner's lathe; the cheeks of a glazier's vise; the cheeks of a mortar, and of a gun-carriage; the cheeks of a mast, which serve to sustain the trestle trees, &c. Cheek by jowl, closeness, proximity. – Beaum.

CHEEK'-BONE, n.

The bone of the cheek.

CHEEK'ED, a.

Brought near the cheek.