Idiom Breakdown

like cheese at fourpence

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Definition

Of a person: waiting idly or timewasting.

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Origins

From the mill towns of Lancashire, where fourpence was considered expensive for cheese and hence cheese for sale at that price would not be bought.

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In Context

"Don't stand there like cheese at fourpence."
""Why are you standing there like cheese at fourpence?""
"Then you can stay sat there like cheese at fourpence till Mrs Henshaw gets back with her lawyer."