cheeky, adjective

Origin:
English, South African EnglishShow more Special sense of general English cheeky impertinent (this sense also being used in South African English).
offensive
Uppity; acting above one’s station; parmantig sense a.
Note:
The term has racist overtones, being used by White people of or to Black people who are thought not to ‘know their place’: cf. white adjective sense 1 b.
1863 Lady Duff-Gordon in F. Galton Vacation Tourists (1864) III. 178‘You see it makes the d....d niggers cheeky’ to have homes of their own — and the girls are said to be immoral.
1924 G. Baumann in Baumann & Bright Lost Republic (1940) 138‘Don’t you remember me, Baas? I neglected my duty’ (or ‘I was cheeky to my Baas’, or something or other) ‘and you gave me a flogging’.
1949 L. Hunter Afr. Dawn 111There was the one Nkosikazi who could not speak Xhosa. She had been very angry, however, when he had spoken to her in English. Telling him he was ‘cheeky’ she had sent him off.
1956 T. Huddleston Naught for your Comfort 80Their venom is directed at the ‘educated kaffir’, the ‘cheeky nigger’, the ‘smart skellum’.
1960 Z.K. Matthews in H. Spottiswoode S. Afr.: Rd Ahead 173[African education was], according to other white people, deserving the highest condemnation because it taught Africans some ‘book-learning’ and made them ‘cheeky’.
1963 B. Modisane Blame Me on Hist. (1986) 94There is a resentment against the educated African, not so much because he is allegedly cheeky, but that he fails to conform to the stereotype image of the black man.
1978 A.P. Brink Rumours of Rain 247We always got along very well with the Kaffirs. I mean, they were noisy and all that, but they knew their place. Nowadays they’re so cheeky, one doesn’t know what to do any more.
1985 P. Slabolepszy Sat. Night at Palace 50All you see is black faces. Bus drivers, bank tellers, bloody three-piece suits, man! And cheeky!
1990 R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart 32Mathibes was said to be ‘cheeky’, but he was very clever with his hands, knew welding and soldering.., so he was put up with — respected even.
Uppity; acting above one’s station; parmantig sense a.
Derivatives:
Hence cheekiness  noun.
1976 Weekend World 26 Sept. 33B— worked as a clerk for the Department of Native Affairs for two years — and had his ups and downs for ‘cheekiness’.
1980 J. Cock Maids & Madams 97Several colonial twentieth century societies made provision for the physical chastisement of domestic servants for ‘cheekiness’ and other wrongdoing.
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18631990

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cheekiness

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derogatory or offensive
checkers, nounn.cheesa, verbal nounvbl n.
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