Cheeseburger is a compound of cheese + (ham)burger, American English coinage of the 1930s. Cheese is from Old English cīese, an early borrowing from Latin cāseus. The historical trail runs through cīese in Old English and cāseus in Latin. Morphologically, cheeseburger is transparent: it is a compound of cheese + (ham)burger, American English coinage of the 1930s. Used as a noun, cheeseburger now means "a hamburger served with a slice of melted cheese", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in related forms such as cheese, hamburger, and burger. The result is a borrowed or transmitted form whose modern spelling carries a compact record of its route into English.