government cheese
A poor quality processed cheese, similar to regular American cheese, produced and…A poor quality processed cheese, similar to regular American cheese, produced and stored in the 1970s and 1980s from excess dairy milk production from dairy subsidies, created by the U.S. government to support the milk industry, and for long term storage.
Meaning
4 senses(US, historical, uncountable)A poor quality processed cheese, similar to regular American cheese, produced and stored in the 1970s and 1980s from excess dairy milk production from dairy subsidies, created by the U.S. government to support the milk industry, and for long term storage.
(US, historical, uncountable)Processed cheese provided to welfare and food stamp recipients in the United States during the 1980s and early 1990s (coming from such stocks).
(US, excessive, humorous, uncountable)Any inexpensive unexceptional cheese.
Eww, no. Don't be putting that government cheese on my sandwich! Give me the havarti!
(US, broadly, uncountable)Welfare in general.
Near-synonym: largesse
Synonyms
2 synonymsWord family
2 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.