cheese

To cheese a game is to win with a cheap, low-skill trick instead of playing it the way it was designed. That might mean exploiting a glitch, hiding where a boss can’t reach you, or spamming one move the opponent can’t handle. The trick itself is called cheese, or a cheese strategy.

What it means

Cheese isn’t exactly cheating. You’re using what the game allows, just not in the spirit it was meant. That’s why it splits people: some see it as clever problem-solving, others as a cheap way to skip the challenge.

• Boss fights: in games like Dark Souls or Sekiro, “cheesing” a boss means finding a spot or exploit that makes the fight trivial.
• Strategy games: in StarCraft, a cheese is an early, all-in rush that wins fast if the opponent isn’t ready.
• Fighting games: repeating one hard-to-counter move over and over.

Examples

• “I couldn’t beat him, so I cheesed him from the ledge.”
• “That’s not skill, that’s cheese.”
• “Is it cheesing if it works? Asking for a friend.”

Where it came from

The gaming sense comes from Street Fighter II players in the early 1990s, building on “cheesy,” meaning cheap or second-rate. Inverse found a Usenet definition from 1992; Know Your Meme points to a 1993 Street Fighter II FAQ as the earliest online mention it found. The 1994 fighting game Primal Rage even had a “No Cheese” feature that weakened combos when a move was spammed.

Cheese vs. “cheese it”

“Cheese it!” is much older slang meaning “run away,” from 1800s thieves’ talk. It has nothing to do with games.

Related terms

• meta: the strategies that currently work best
• EZ: “easy,” often typed after a cheesy win
• try-hard: someone who takes the game very seriously
• sweaty: playing with maximum effort
• pay-to-win: buying your way to an advantage

See more terms like this in our gaming slang dictionary.