# turn the other cheek

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/turn-the-other-cheek
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

To accept punishment or injury without retaliating.

## Examples

- He chose to turn the other cheek instead of fighting back.
- Even though his coworker was rude to him, he decided to turn the other cheek and stay professional.
- Rather than engaging in a bitter cycle of retaliation, she chose to turn the other cheek, demonstrating a level of grace that surprised her critics.

## Origin

The phrase comes from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:39, where Jesus counters the older principle of measured retaliation, an eye for an eye. Instead he says: do not resist an evildoer; if someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. It is a deliberate reversal of the instinct to hit back, offering the aggressor a second target rather than a matching blow. The teaching is about non-retaliation: absorbing an insult or injury rather than escalating it. Whether read as pacifism or as a pointed refusal to play by the logic of revenge, the gesture of presenting the other cheek is the memorable core. In English, to turn the other cheek means to respond to hostility or provocation without retaliating, to take the hit and decline to return it. It is invoked both as an ideal of restraint and, sometimes, as a challenge to it.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.