Why Do We Say Cheers? The Origin of Every Toast Tradition

Episode 0008: Jonny Hoffner - Good > Safe

Jonny Hoffner of Paper Antler Photography and Good Lion Golf on 17 years of wedding photography, building two creative businesses, and why good doesn't have to mean safe.

Every culture that drinks together eventually invents a word for the moment before the first sip. The English word is “cheers.” Germans say Prost. The French say Santé. The Irish say Sláinte. The Japanese say Kanpai. The Czechs say Na zdraví while making firm eye contact.

Different words, different sounds, same impulse: pause here, look at each other, and acknowledge that this moment matters.

Where did “cheers” come from? And why does every language seem to need a word like it?

The Old French root nobody expects

The word “cheers” has French origins, which surprises most people.

It comes from the Old French chiere, meaning face or expression. When the word entered English in the 13th century, “cheer” referred to the mood visible on someone’s face. To look with good cheer was to wear a pleasant expression. To be of good cheer meant something closer to what we now call being in good spirits.

By the 16th and 17th centuries, the word had extended from the face to the feeling behind it. “Cheer” meant gladness, encouragement, and warmth. To cheer someone up was to brighten their expression. To give three cheers was to shout in celebration.

The phrase “be of good cheer” appears in the King James Bible and in Shakespeare. It had weight and warmth, the language of blessing and reassurance.

From blessing to shorthand

The full form of a toast used to be much longer.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, toasting was an elaborate art. You would rise, raise your glass, and speak a whole sentence or verse: “To your health and long life” or “May fortune smile upon you and yours.” Printed collections of toasts circulated, offering witty and poetic lines for every occasion.

“Cheers” was not yet a toast word. It was an expression of joy, not a drink ritual.

The shift happened gradually in Britain, mostly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As the industrial middle class expanded and pub culture grew, people wanted a word that could carry the spirit of a toast without requiring a speech. Something warm but efficient.

“Cheers” compressed the whole sentiment into one word. It said: I’m glad to be here, I wish you well, here’s to us. No verse required.

By the early 20th century, the word had become standard in British pubs and social gatherings. It spread quickly through the informal channels of daily life, not through etiquette books, but through ordinary habit.

Why “cheers” stuck when other words faded

English has other toast words. Bottoms up has been around since the 18th century, describing the act of draining a glass. Here’s mud in your eye was common in early 20th century America. Skol entered English from Scandinavian languages.

None of them stuck the way “cheers” did. The reason might be that “cheers” isn’t only a toast. It’s also a casual British sign-off, a way of saying thank you, a general expression of goodwill. In the UK especially, “cheers” functions across contexts in a way that pure toast words don’t.

That flexibility made it resilient. It became part of the texture of everyday speech, not just something reserved for formal occasions.

How other languages found the same word

Every language with a drinking culture eventually needed a toast word. What’s interesting is how different the roots are, even when the function is identical.

Prost (German and Austrian): From the Latin prosit, meaning “may it benefit” or “may it be of use.” It’s the subjunctive form of the verb prodesse. When you say Prost, you’re technically wishing that the drink benefits the person receiving it.

Santé (French): Literally “health.” The French toast to your health directly. À votre santé is the full form; santé is the casual version.

Sláinte (Irish and Scottish Gaelic): Also means health. Pronounced roughly “slawn-cha.” It has deep roots in Gaelic culture and carried over with Irish and Scottish immigrants around the world.

Salud (Spanish and Portuguese): Again, health. The Romans toasted ad salutem (to health), and the Spanish and Portuguese preserved that root directly.

Na zdraví (Czech and Slovak): Means “to health” in Slavic languages. The Czech tradition requires eye contact when you clink glasses, and some say you should also tap the glass on the table before raising it.

Kanpai (Japanese): Written with characters meaning “empty the cup,” kanpai carries both the instruction and the wish. You toast, and then you drink.

Skål (Scandinavian): The origins are debated. One popular theory connects it to the Norse tradition of drinking from a skull: the skull of a defeated enemy or, in some versions, a large bowl. Most historians treat this as folk etymology, but it’s a vivid story that survives.

What these words share is not the language but the logic. Humans everywhere arrived at the same conclusion: the moment before a shared drink needs marking, and it needs a sound.

Why toasting exists at all

The history of toasting goes back further than any single word. Ancient Greeks poured libations for the gods before drinking. Romans drank in each other’s honor with elaborate ceremony. Medieval English drinkers floated spiced bread in wine and dedicated the cup.

The word changed across centuries and cultures. The ritual stayed.

Anthropologists who study ritual note that shared physical acts create social bonds. Eating together does this. Drinking together does this more intensely, partly because alcohol reduces inhibition, but also because the act of choosing to share a drink is itself a small commitment. The toast makes that commitment visible. It says: I’m choosing to be present with you, right now.

That’s why “cheers” carries more weight than it seems to. It’s not just a habit. It’s a compression of something very old: the human need to mark a shared moment before it passes.

The meaning behind the word

Next time someone raises a glass and says “cheers,” consider what the word has done to get here.

It traveled from Old French faces to English hearts, through Shakespeare and pub culture, through the industrial revolution and into the 21st century. It compressed a whole culture of blessing and well-wishing into a single syllable.

And every language that drinks together invented its own version of the same idea.

The word is different everywhere. The feeling is the same.