English → Latin
“cheek” in Latin
genacheek; eye socket; eye or eyelidmalusunpleasant, distressing, painful, nasty, bad; unpleasant to the senses, sight, smell, taste, touch; bad, evil, wicked, mmāxillathe jaw, jawbone, bone of the upper jaw; the lower part of the face, the jawshī̆rsūtusrough, shaggy, bristly, prickly; hairy, hirsute
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
cheek
gena (check; the fleshy side of the face: mostly genae, plur.): hucca (the lower part of the side of the face): mala (the upper jaw; also cheek, physiologically: but = genae only in prae-Augustan poets and post-Augustan prose writers): maxilla (the lower jaw). Pale cheeks, genae exsangues: hairy cheeks, genae pilosae or hirsutae: smooth shaven, genae erasae: hanging cheeks, buccae fluentes (Cic.): to have hollow cheeks, macilentis esse mails: to paint or rouge one’s cheeks, linere malas cerussa: to have one’s cheeks rouged, buccas belle purpurissatas habere (Plaut.): rouged cheeks, painted cheeks, buccae cerussatae (Cic.). To inflate or blow out one’s cheeks, buccas inflare, sufflare (Plaut.). Having large cheeks, bucco: bucculentus (Plaut.).
Cheek-bone, *os Zigmaticum (technical term): maxilla: mala (mala, upper jaw: maxilla, lower jaw). Cheek-teeth, dens maxillaris, molaris genuinus.
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for cheek?
- The usual Latin words for “cheek” are gena, malus, māxilla; also hī̆rsūtus. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.