Definition of "tongue-in-cheek" []

• Meant or expressed ironically or facetiously. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The crass appropriation of Christian imagery in the name of tongue-in-cheek kitsch increasingly makes me flinch - but quietly, as I don't want to come across as some sort of po-faced fundie, now, do I?"
• "In 1950, Stephen Potter, the British author of Gamesmanship and Lifemanship and the coiner of one-upmanship, gave the word a tongue-in-cheek sense of “a maneuver to gain the better of an opponent or co-worker.”"
• "Justice Breyer's obviously tongue-in-cheek question supplies its own answer."