who says "cheers"?

Question

some people use "cheers" as a greeting...
it is a british thing? or someone else that it orignitaed from?

Answer 1

Origin of the word 'Cheers'
By Cloudesley, with an assist from Oxford's J.H.Marshall of OWLS

In the medieval times 'cheer' meant face and by that expression or mood. Although the phrase "makien cheres, & wrenchen mis hore" (making cheers, & wenching miss whore)was written in 1225 ad. By the mid fourteen hundreds the phrase "what chere be with you?" was a common greeting. At this time 'chere' also began to mean good humour. It wasn't until 1919 that "cheers" was written a salutation before a drink. The custom of touching glasses is recorded in the 'Oxford English Dictionary' from at least 1820
(the 'Regency' period) as something done by fashionable English gentlemen when drinking together.

Also,...
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/22/messages/526.html

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Answer 2

I think it is a british thing. We had some british friends who came over to Australia and they said it all of the time. It just caught on and we say it too now

Answer 3

i am british.
"cheers" is used in 2 ways.
when we're having dinner we chink our glasses together and say "cheers"
the other way is for saying "thank you".
cheers is a slang way of saying thank you and is not used by every one but a lot of people do say it.

Answer 4

Yes it seems to be British. Supposed to say it when clinking beer glasses together etc. Now we just say it as a 'thank you'

Answer 5

I think that it started there, but has spread to pretty much every beer drinking nation at this point.

Answer 6

sorry it didn't spread here with our local breweries.

that crap would pass for a fun time drinking ale. We have our own thing that I don't care to share.

Answer 7

Plebs.

Answer 8

with purple...'cept followed with "mate"