Also 7 Cheder, 8 Chadder, 9 Chedder. The name of a village near the Mendip hills in Somerset. Hence Cheddar cheese (or contextually Cheddar): see quotations.
1666. [see b].
1684. Mrs. Behn, Bajazet to Gloriana, in Poems Aff. State (1697), 170.
| Whose composition was like Cheder Cheese, | |
| (In whose Production all the Town agrees). |
1721. Bailey, Cheddar or Chadder … the most noted place in all England for making large, fine, rich, and pleasant cheese; for which purpose all the milk of the town cows is brought every day into one common room, where proper persons are appointed to receive it, and set down every person’s quantity in a book kept for that purpose, which is put all together, and one common cheese made with it.
1879. Echo, 18 Oct., 1/5. Fears that the makers of American cheese … would oust our home Cheddars from the position of supremacy they had so long held.
b. attrib. and Comb., Cheddar-club, a club formed by dairies for the purpose of making Cheddar cheese; Cheddar letter (humorous), a letter to which a number of persons contribute each a paragraph, as a Cheddar cheese is made by the contributions of several dairies.
1666. Pol. Ballads (1860), I. 181. As the Cheddar clubs dairy to th’ incorporate cheese.
1726. Bolingbroke, in Swift’s Lett., 22 Sept. I wrote the other day the first paragraph of that Cheddar letter which is preparing for you.
c. Cheddar Pink. A pink with solitary flowers of a pale rose color (Dianthus cæsius), found on the limestone cliffs at Cheddar.
