It's very likely that Dodgson had heard of Cheshire cats being said to grin and adapted the idea into his story. The mysterious word chessy alternated with jessy. According to the Collins Dictionary, grin like a Cheshire cat means to do a big smile, often because you are pleased with yourself. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has a long troupe of fantastical animals. In America the phrase to grin like a chessy cat surfaced in an 1877 dictionary. The numerous folk-etymology derivations that explain how Lewis Carroll came up with the idea have to be spurious, as we know he didn't. We can take the next line in Thackeray's piece - 'Who was the naturalist who first discovered that peculiarity of the It seems likely that no one really believed that they actually did. There's no convincing explanation of why Cheshire cats were imagined to grin. Pendennis in his droll, humorous way, 'That woman grins like a Cheshire William Makepeace Thackeray also used the description well before Dodgson, in The Newcomes memoirs of a most respectable family, 1854–55:

John Wolcot, the poet and satirist, who wrote under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, included it in his Works, published variously between 17 - 'Lo! like a Cheshire cat our court will grin'. Or someone who is really happy or excited. The term was popularized by the character in Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland. We do know that Lewis Carroll (The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) didn't coin the phrase himself, as there are citations of it that pre-date his stories. Chessy cat is a 60s slang term to describe someone with a wild grin on their face. 'They all can,' said the Duchess 'and most of 'em do.' 'I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned in fact, I didn't know that cats COULD grin.' Quite jumped but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again: The Cheshire Cat’s enigmatic smile holds a hidden wisdom that captivates and perplexes readers. She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice The Cheshire Cat’s disappearing act serves as a reminder that reality isn’t always as it seems, and that appearances can be deceiving in the strange and fantastical world of Wonderland. 'It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, 'and that's why. Speak first, 'why your cat grins like that?' She was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to

'Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for

Of course, we know the phrase because of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, (published 1865) and John Tenniel's illustrations in it: What's the origin of the phrase 'Grinning like a Cheshire cat'? What's the meaning of the phrase 'Grinning like a Cheshire cat'?

Grinning like a chessy cat meaning