Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Cheek
Cheeks as brown as oak leaves.
—Anonymous
Cheek as the blood of the dragon bright.
—Arabian Nights
The down on his cheeks dispread like myrtles springing from the heart of a bright red rose.
—Arabian Nights
Cheeks like blood-red anemones.
—Arabian Nights
John Bull looked ruddy and plump, with a pair of cheeks like a trumpeter.
—John Arbuthnot
Upon her tender cheek the mingled dye is scattered, of the lily and the rose.
—Ariosto
Checks, like men who live, and draw the vital air.
—Matthew Arnold
The blood within her crystal cheekes did such a colour drive,
As though the lillye and the rose for mastership did strive.
—English Ballad
Her cheeks like living roses glow.
—Scottish Ballad
Cheeks as soft as July peaches.
—William Cox Bennett
Her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose.
—Emily Brontë
Cheeks full and swollen, like a ploughboy’s.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Her cheek like the spray o’ th’ sea.
—Alice Cary
Cheeks as brown as sun could kiss them.
—Alice Cary
Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud that beautifies Aurora’s face.
—Henry Constable
There’s a mantling flush that dwells in his cheeks,
Like a roseleaf thrown on the snow.
—Eliza Cook
With a cheek like a burning rose.
—Barry Cornwall
Like a rose set in snow was the bloom on her cheek.
—John Crawford
Her glowing cheeks like youthful Hebe’s fair.
—John Cunningham
A blooming pair of vermeil cheeks, like Hebe’s in her ruddiest hours.
—George Darley
Your cheeks of late are like bad printed books,
So dimly charactered, I scarce can spell
One line of love in them.
—Thomas Dekker
Her cheeks were like the roses red.
—Michael Drayton
The frighted blood
Scarce yet recalled to her pale cheeks,
Like the first streaks of light broke loose from darkness,
And dawning into blushes.
—John Dryden
Cheeks pearly as those of Pallas of Virgil.
—Alexandre Dumas, père
A cheek like an apple-blossom.
—George Eliot
Lovely her cheeks were, like berries red.
—Ancient Erse
Her cheeks are as red as the rose’s sheen.
—Sir Samuel Ferguson
His cheek is like the rose of spring.
—Firdawsī
Cheek crimsoned like the bloom of the pomegranate.
—Firdawsī
Her cheeks, as snowy apples sopt in wines.
—Giles Fletcher
Cheeks are as round and as red as a cherry.
—David Garrick
That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks [Lincoln’s] that hold
Like some harsh landscape all the summer’s gold.
—Richard Watson Gilder
Cheeks like the rose on a bed of snow.
—Alfred Perceval Graves
A cheek wherein for interchange of hue
A wrangling strife ’twixt lily and the rose.
—Robert Greene
Her cheeks, like rose and lily yield forth gleams.
—Robert Greene
Her cheeks like ripened lilies steeped in wine,
Or fair pomegranate kernels washed in milk,
Or snow-white threads in nests of crimson silk,
Or gorgeous clouds upon the sun’s decline.
—Robert Greene
Cheeks that shamed the rose.
—John Harrington
Cheeks like creame enclairited.
—Robert Herrick
Cheeks like roses when they blow.
—Robert Herrick
Cheeks as ripe as apples.
—Leigh Hunt
Her cheeks like winter apples red of hue.
—Jean Ingelow
Cheeks as pink as a seashell.
—Mary Johnston
Cheeks for all the world like a roseberry ice upon a ground of custard.
—Hugh Kelly
Her cheek was as a rainbow, it so changed,
As each emotion o’er its surface ranged.
—Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud,
That beautifies Aurora’s face;
Or like the silver crimson shroud,
That Phœbus’ smiling looks doth grace.
—Thomas Lodge
Cheeks like the dawn of day.
—Henry W. Longfellow
Your cheeks are roses fair yet pink.
—Catulle Mendès
Cheek was wan as clay.
—William J. Mickle
Her cheek was as white and cold as clay.
—Winthrop Mackworth Praed
Cheeks like peaches.
—Francis S. Saltus
Cheeks like Punic apples are.
—George Sandys
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp.
—William Shakespeare
Had wet their cheeks, like trees bedashed with rain.
—William Shakespeare
Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded.
—Edmund Spenser
His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers.
—Old Testament
His cheeks, as roses red, as lilies fair.
—William Thomson
Her cheeks are as the fading stain
Where the peach reddens to the south.
—Oscar Wilde
Her cheek was like the moist heart of a rose.
—N. P. Willis
Cheeks were red as ruddy clover.
—William Wordsworth