smearcase

[ smeer-keys ]

noun

, Chiefly North Midland U.S.

1. any soft cheese suitable for spreading or eating with a spoon, especially a sour cottage cheese.

Word History and Origins

Origin of smearcase¹

1820–30, Americanism; half translation, half adoption of German Schmierkäse, equivalent to schmier ( en ) to spread, smear + Käse cheese ¹

Example Sentences

“That was just a joke. We’re going to have potato salad and smearcase and cold chicken and apple pie and lots of other good things. We’ve been cooking ever since your father called.”

From Literature

There was a plate of rye-bread, and a plate of wheat, and a basket of crackers: another plate with half a dozen paltry cakes that looked as if they had been bought under the old Court House: some morsels of dried beef on two little tea-cup plates, and a small glass dish of that preparation of curds, which in vulgar language is called smearcase, but whose nom de guerre is cottage-cheese, at least that was the appellation given it by our hostess.

From Project Gutenberg

If old Smearcase continues to fool away his hard-earned wealth in that manner, his friends ought to buy an injunction on his will!

From Project Gutenberg

One finds also here and there a word from the "Pennsylvania Dutch," such as "waumus" for a loose jacket, from the German wamms, a doublet, and "smearcase" for cottage cheese, from the German schmierkäse.

From Project Gutenberg

Schmierkäse German cottage cheese that becomes smearcase in America.

From Project Gutenberg