cheery

C2+ Topic:Describing Qualities

US /ˈtʃɪri/ UK /ˈtʃɪəri/ See IPA manual

Minimal pairs

Sounds like chilly /l/ vs /r/

Meanings

1

adj
bright and pleasant; cheerful

She greeted them with a cheery wave from the doorway.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 adj · bright and pleasant; cheerful cheerful bright jolly merry sunny buoyant blithe upbeat

Opposites

gloomy glum morose dejected cheerless

Word family

Derived forms cheerily cheeriness

Related forms cheer cheerful cheerless

Appears in

Phrases (1)

See all

cheery hello
a bright and friendly spoken greeting

Adjective + noun

Etymology

From cheer + -y. Cheer is from Old French chiere ('face, countenance, mood'), from Late Latin cara ('face'), from Greek kara ('head').

chiere Old French cara la-lat

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Describing Qualities Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# cheery

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** adj
**IPA (US):** /ˈtʃɪri/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈtʃɪəri/

## Meanings
1. bright and pleasant; cheerful

## Examples
- She greeted them with a cheery wave from the doorway.

## Synonyms
- cheerful
- bright
- jolly
- merry
- sunny
- buoyant
- blithe
- upbeat

## Antonyms
- gloomy
- glum
- morose
- dejected
- cheerless

## Derived Forms
- cheerily
- cheeriness

## Related Forms
- cheer
- cheerful
- cheerless

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: chiere
- Root: cara

## Etymology
From cheer + -y. Cheer is from Old French chiere ('face, countenance, mood'), from Late Latin cara ('face'), from Greek kara ('head').

## AI Etymology
Cheery is from cheer + -y. Cheer is from Old French chiere ('face, countenance, mood'), from Late Latin cara ('face'), from Greek kara ('head'). Important recorded forms include chiere (Old French) and cara (Latin). Morphologically, the word is a built form whose named elements carry part of the historical sense. The current sense covers bright and pleasant; cheerful. The wider family includes derived forms such as cheerily and cheeriness and related words such as cheer, cheerful, and cheerless.

## Topics
- Describing Qualities
- Word Formation & Derivatives

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