Dictionary

rat-trap cheese en · NOUN

Etymology

So called because it might be used in baiting a trap.

Meanings

1. (US, countable, informal, uncountable) Inexpensive unexceptional cheese.
   • Having spent twice as much money as I had intended during the first month in New York, I tried to live even more frugally than I had earlier in the year. I still ate rye bread and rat-trap cheese in my room, but less of it[…] 1951, Erskine Caldwell, Call it Experience: The Years of Learning how to Write, page 112:
   • Near-synonym: government cheese (sometimes humorously synonymous)
2. (US, countable, informal, uncountable) Inexpensive unexceptional cheese. ▸ American cheese portrayed as such.

Forms

Relateds

mousetrap · rattrap

Synonyms

government cheese · rat cheese · rat cheese · government cheese