cheek by jowl

comparative more cheek by jowl · superlative most cheek by jowl

1. UKidiomaticIn very close physical proximity; crowded together; side by side.

   Ile go vvith thee, cheeke by iovvle.

   c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], signature F, recto

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   VVee ſee Marchants, countrie-Iuſtices, and Artificers to march cheeke by joll vvith our Nobilitie, in valour, and military diſcipline.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, “Of Presumption”, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 375

   [T]heir Churches ſtand vvide open early and late, inviting as it vvere all comers, […] the Cobler vvill kneel vvith the Count; and the Laundreſs gig by goll vvith her Lady, there being no Pevvs there to cauſe pride and envy, contentions and quarrels vvhich are ſo rife in our Churches.

   1655, James Howell, “XXXVI. To J. Anderson, Esq”, in Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar Letters Domestic and Forren. […], 3rd edition, volume IV, London: […] Humphrey Mos[e]ley, […], →OCLC, section VI, page 483

   A Sheep-hook then, with Patch his Dog, / And Tar-box by his side; / He with his Master, jig by jowl, / Unto old Gillian hy'd.

   1719, Thomas d’Urfey, compiler, “The King and Shepherd, and Gillian the Shepherd’s Wife, with Her Churlish Answer to the King”, in Songs Compleat, Pleasant and Divertive; […], volume V, London: […] W. Pearson, for J[acob] Tonson, […], published 19th century, →OCLC, page 293

   […] I believe I crammed them [two petitions] baith into his hand cheek by jowl, and maybe my ain was boonmost; […]

   […] I believe I crammed them both into his hand cheek by jowl, and maybe my own was uppermost; […]

   1822 May 29, [Walter Scott], chapter III, in The Fortunes of Nigel. […], volume I (in English), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 94

   Names upon your roll / Of half my subjects rescued by your skill— / Old and young, rich and poor—crowd cheek by jowl

   1880, Robert Browning, “Doctor ——”, in Dramatic Idyls: Second Series, London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 128

   Synonyms: alongside, cheek for chowl, elbow to elbow, shoulder-to-shoulder, tooth-to-jowl

2. UKfigurativelyidiomaticIn very close or intimate association.

   [B]ooks have a way of influencing each other. Fiction will be much the better for standing cheek by jowl with poetry and philosophy.

   1929 September, Virginia Woolf, chapter VI, in A Room of One’s Own, uniform edition, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, […], published 1931 (April 1935 printing), →OCLC, page 164

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   Exit and voice, social theorist Albert O[tto] Hirschman's famous dichotomous strategies, collided in the South Carolina countryside, where renewed commitment to the nation existed cheek by jowl with exit from it.

   2007, John Fabian Witt, “Elias Hill’s Exodus: Exit and Voice in the Reconstruction Nation”, in Patriots and Cosmopolitans: Hidden Histories of American Law, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 88

comparative more cheek by jowl · superlative most cheek by jowl · alternative cheek-by-jowl · alternative cheek-to-jowl · alternative cheek to jowl

1. UKidiomaticOften in the form cheek-by-jowl: in very close physical proximity; crowded together; tightly packed.

   Books on etymology lay among Tamil poetry and volumes on religion were cheek by jowl with science fiction.

   2010, Manorama Mathai, chapter 27, in Love and Dr. Aiyar, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 121

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   And 'tvvas not long, before ſhe found / Him, and his ſtout Squire, in the Pound; / Both coupled in Inchanted Tether, / By further leg behind together: / For as he ſate upon his Rump, / His head like one in doleful dump, / Betvveen his knees, his hands appli'd / Unto his ears on either ſide. / And by him, in another hole, / Afflicted Ralpho, cheek by Joul; […]

   1663 (indicated as 1664), [Samuel Butler], “Canto I”, in Hudibras. The Second Part. […], London: […] T[homas] R[oycroft] for John Martyn, and James Allestry […], →OCLC, page 9

   As we drove at breakneck speed through the streets, I could not help but be overwhelmed by the gaunt and desperate faces of the people, the endless squatter settlements of cheek-by-jowl, single-room shacks surrounded by ankle-deep mud, and the occasional glimpses of the rich apparently oblivious to the suffering around them.

   1991, Robert C. Linthicum, “Our City as the Abode of Satanic Principalities and Powers”, in City of God, City of Satan: A Biblical Theology of the Urban Church, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, →ISBN, part I (The City: Battleground), page 64

   [T]he periodical press offers a pithy conspectus of the diversity of Victorian writing. For the magazine format, bringing together as it does a range of authors, topics and kinds of article into a single but serialized text, offers to twentieth-century readers a cheek by jowl structure which alerts us to the nuances of difference – categories of gender, genre, class, ideology, discourse – which allegedly more seamless texts are claimed to repress.

   1997, Laurel Brake, “Writing, Cultural Production, and the Periodical Press in the Nineteenth Century”, in J. B. Bullen, editor, Writing and Victorianism, Harlow, Essex: Addison Wesley Longman, →ISBN, page 54

   The universal bohios (palm-leaved, thatched huts) are cheek by jowl with each other, right to the water's edge where they are often linked to each other by narrow planks across inlets and creeks.

   2012, Roger Lovegrove, “San Blas Islands”, in Islands Beyond the Horizon: The Life of Twenty of the World’s Most Remote Places, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 62

   […] Diane […] turned down the road that ran alongside the river. It was sprinkled with houses, some dilapidated, some newer, some cheek by jowl, others sitting on wide parcels of land.

   2014, Marlo Thomas, It Ain’t Over … till It’s Over: Reinventing Your Life—and Realizing Your Dreams—Anytime, at Any Age, New York, N.Y.: Atria Books, →ISBN, page 306

   Synonyms: packed like sardines