cheeseburger

Etymology

It is formed from English cheese + -burger, the ending taken from hamburger.^[2][3][4][5] The OED notes that the short form burger is recorded later than this compound.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hamburger topped with cheese and served in a bun: about 1930, on a menu of O'Dell's restaurant in Los Angeles.^[2] Barry Popik, who found that undated menu ("Cheeseburger on bun…15 cents") in the Los Angeles Public Library in 2001, notes that it may be the first record but that the restaurant cannot be traced in the city directories.^[6] Merriam-Webster gives 1928 as the first known use,^[4] Etymonline 1938,^[3] the 1989 edition of the OED 1938,^[7] and Dictionary.com 1935–40.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The idea is older than the word: according to Popik, cheese was being added to hamburgers in the 1920s and 1930s; a "combination cheese and hamburger sandwich" was advertised in Salt Lake City in 1926, Lionel C. Sternberger is said to have served a hamburger with cheese, dubbed the "Aristocratic Burger", at the Rite Spot in Pasadena in 1927, a "new cheeseburger sandwich" was advertised in January 1932, and cheeseburgers were popular in Corpus Christi by 1936.^[6] Dictionary.com labels the word an Americanism.^[5] The 1989 edition of the OED defined it as a hamburger with cheese mixed with or placed on the meat;^[7] the current definitions all have the cheese on top, usually melted or as a slice.^[2][8][4]

Timeline

• c. 1930 – a hamburger topped with cheese, on a Los Angeles menu.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1928, Etymonline to 1938.^[4][3]
• 1932 – the "new cheeseburger sandwich" in a newspaper advertisement.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hamburger topped with a slice of cheese, usually melted, and served in a bun: She ordered a cheeseburger and a milkshake.^[8][4][2][9]

Related words

• burger
• hamburger
• cheese

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c Popik, Barry, The Big Apple, barrypopik.com, p. "Cheeseburger", 25 September 2007
7. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press