- cheesecake (n.)
- also cheese-cake, mid-15c., from cheese (n.1) + cake (n.). In figurative uses for "soft, effeminate" from 18c. Slang meaning dates from 1934, when a "Time" magazine article defined it as "leg-pictures of sporty females." In its early years this sense of the word often was associated with Marlene Dietrich.
