As thin as Banbury cheese
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
In Marston's Jack Dt urn's Entertainment (1600) we read, "You are like a Banbury cheese, nothing but paring "; and Bardolph compares Slender to Banbury cheese (Merry Wives, i, 1).
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “As thin as Banbury cheese” mean?
In Marston's Jack Dt urn's Entertainment (1600) we read, "You are like a Banbury cheese, nothing but paring "; and Bardolph compares Slender to Banbury cheese (Merry Wives, i, 1).
Is “As thin as Banbury cheese” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.