- 1開玩笑的、非認真的（但表面裝正經）；「講反話」「說笑的啦」。中文的「戲謔」意思接近，但英文這個詞口語得多。
If something is tongue-in-cheek, the person saying it does not really mean it — they are joking, but keeping a straight face while they do. This is the key: it is not laughing-out-loud joking, it is dry joking. The speaker says something as if it were serious, and trusts you to notice it is not. So a tongue-in-cheek review of a bad film might praise it in glowing words; a tongue-in-cheek apology sounds polite but is really teasing. It works as an adjective before a noun ('a tongue-in-cheek comment', 'a tongue-in-cheek suggestion') and after the verb ('his answer was tongue-in-cheek'). It also works as an adverb: 'She said it tongue in cheek' — and notice that when it comes after the verb like that, many writers drop the . Both spellings are common and neither is wrong. The tone is light and friendly. If someone tells you 'don't worry, that was tongue-in-cheek', they are saying 'I was teasing, please don't take it badly'. Because it depends on the listener catching the joke, it is a word people often reach for after a joke has gone wrong.
From the word’s history
Alludes to the expression made by putting one's tongue in one's cheek; first in print in 1828.
指把舌頭頂在臉頰內側的表情；1828 年首次見於書中。
組成The phrase paints a picture: pushing your tongue into your cheek is the little face someone pulls when they are holding back a laugh. It appeared in print in 1828, though it is not fully clear whether that first use meant the joking sense or was still describing the literal face; a slightly later use by the writer Richard Barham clearly means the modern sense.
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
tongue-in-cheekadj
- 1
Not intended seriously; jocular or humorous.
- He gave a tongue-in-cheek explanation of why the sky was blue, offering a theory about some primordial discount on light blue paint.
- It was in this era, too, that author and Scotland the Brave songwriter Cliff Hanley penned The Glasgow Underground, a tongue-in-cheek love letter to the Subway in song.
tongue-in-cheekadv
- 1
obsoleteWith contempt.
- 2
With irony.
- He portrayed them tongue-in-cheek as great lawgivers, as Solons.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。