Other forms: cheers, cheering, cheered
To cheer is to shout with approval and encouragement. The crowd cheered, cheer for your team, a great cheer went up.
The noun is the shout itself: three cheers, a loud cheer. Two phrasal verbs are among the most useful in the language: cheer up means to become or make somebody happier, and cheer on means to shout encouragement at somebody competing. Note cheers, which in British English means thank you, goodbye and a drinking toast, all three, and which foreign speakers find bewildering until they simply start using it for everything, which is what British people do.
1verbcheerTo shout in approval or encouragement.
“The whole stand cheered for a full minute.”
synonyms: applaud, root for
2nounshoutA shout of approval.
“A cheer went up from somewhere near the back.”
3verbhappierTo make somebody happier.
“The news cheered everybody considerably.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
cheer is a shout of approval.
Old French chiere meant a face or an expression, from Latin cara, a head. Cheer was originally how you looked — good cheer meant a pleasant expression — and it moved from the face to the mood and then to the noise.
Proto-Indo-European
*keh₂-
Latin
cara — head
Old French
chiere — head, face; appearance; reception, hospitality; meal, dinner, food
Anglo-Norman
chere
Middle English
chere
English, today
cheer
From Middle English chere, from Anglo-Norman chere, from Old French chiere (“head, face; appearance; reception, hospitality; meal, dinner, food”) (Modern French chère), from Latin cara (“head”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA