cheek muscle
- noun
- /tʃik ˈmʌsəl/
- Specialized
:
músculo de la mejilla
- He practiced his speech in front of the mirror, ensuring his cheek muscles looked relaxed and natural.
Examples
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After a long day of smiling, I could feel my cheek muscles becoming sore.
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Relax those cheek muscles.
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It's mainly the cheek muscles do that, from...
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If your boy has that same firm chin... ...and those splendid cheek muscles, oh-ho-ho...
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He could feel a small tic in a cheek muscle, just below his left eye.
Fiction book (1993) -
In the morning, sometimes, my cheek muscles were so sore it seemed I had been chewing tiny stones at night.
Fiction book (1993) -
Vaughn Rhomer had felt a twitch in his right cheek muscle and changed the subject.
Fiction book (1993) -
The doctor explained that the cheek muscle helps to flatten the cheek and is important for chewing.
Synonyms
3
3.3
A part of the face that moves skin to make expressions
A thin muscle in the cheek that presses the cheek against the teeth to hold food or help blow air
A cheek muscle that flattens the cheek and pulls back the corner of the mouth
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'cheek' (flesh on the side of the face) combined with 'muscle' (tissue that produces movement) yields a muscle located in the cheek. This noun–noun anatomical phrase follows regular compounding patterns and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words will understand it.
Etymology
Cheek muscle is a simple name: cheek shows where it is and muscle shows it moves. It flattens the cheek and pulls the corner of the mouth back to help you 'chew' and 'blow', so that is why we call this part the cheek muscle.