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I find myself these days saying 'cheers' all the time as a kind of mild form of 'thanks', and I heard it said a lot round here (Northamptonshire, England). It's not even a commoner thing, I'd say the middle class are likely to use it a lot. Is it used this way in the US, or would you always consider 'cheers' as something to say when toasting?

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    Here are two questions that seem to be asking something slightly different, but the answers to them actually answer your question as well: “Cheers” vs. “Thanks” in England and Using 'cheers' to sign off an email?.
    – RegDwigнt
    Commented Feb 10, 2011 at 9:37
  • and you might need to translate 'commoner' for the non-Brit readers :) (though I may be wrong...)
    – Benjol
    Commented Feb 10, 2011 at 9:38
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    @Benjol: We Americans know what commoner means; it means "more common", of course! :)
    – Kosmonaut
    Commented Feb 10, 2011 at 14:14
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    Some (pretentious) Americans use "cheers" now in the way they used "ciao" 15 years ago. To my ear, it never fails to sound forced.
    – user13141
    Commented Oct 28, 2011 at 14:22
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    “It's not even a commoner thing, I'd say the middle class are likely to use it a lot.” — we like to adopt some of your quaint phrases to make you feel better about your station in life.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Jul 10, 2014 at 12:52

3 Answers 3

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No, Americans only use it as a toast, although we're aware that people from the UK and Australia use it as thanks or goodbye.

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    Some people use "Cheers" as thanks or goodbye but it is very rare.
    – WalterJ89
    Commented Feb 10, 2011 at 13:14
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    @WalterJ89: and at least in some cases, it is a deliberately affected Britishism.
    – PLL
    Commented Feb 10, 2011 at 17:01
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    I've heard it used as a parting word here in the states. Dunno if it was just from transplanted Brits though (I know a few). Never noticed.
    – T.E.D.
    Commented Jul 19, 2011 at 12:23
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    I've heard it used as "goodbye", but not "thanks" (until I started watching Misfits). Recently, my husband asked me about an email from a colleague that ended in "cheers". He was actually offended by it for some reason. I asked if the sender was from the UK, he said yes, and I explained it was "normal". So many may not be aware, as your answer states. (We are in NYC, by the way — not some backwater.)
    – user24205
    Commented Jul 29, 2012 at 4:18
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    Signing off with "cheers" is pretty common in my experience (I'm English). It's my standard sign-off in emails to friends, and that of many people that I know. I can also confirm that it's also commonly used to mean "thanks" here where, again, it's very informal.
    – Rupe
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 21:06
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Sometimes it is used now to mean "thanks" or "you're welcome" in addition to the toasting context. I live in America and it is catching on, most likely because of the Internet and how interconnected the world has become these days with travel and mobile phones, etc. For better or worse, sayings and distinctions that used to be regional or worldly locators for where a person was from or grew up is not necessarily the case anymore. YouTube, TV shows, movies, friends, travel, and the Internet, etc., can teach anyone anything these days.

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  • Yes, this is right. I mostly use it in writing.
    – Lambie
    Commented Feb 12, 2023 at 22:12
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Some Americans will use "cheerio" to mean thanks or goodbye. But they are mainly "Anglo" Americans, or at least Americans who have spent some time in England.

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    Interesting. I'm not aware of "cheerio" ever being used to mean "thanks" in the UK.
    – Rupe
    Commented Jul 10, 2014 at 14:02
  • As @Rupe pointed out, "cheerio" is most commonly used for goodbye in the UK and I've never heard it used as a replacement for "thanks".
    – Frankie
    Commented Dec 9, 2016 at 20:29
  • @Frankie: I said ANGLO- Americans sometimes do this, not UK residents.
    – Tom Au
    Commented Dec 9, 2016 at 23:44
  • @TomAu thks pointing it out. I've misread it and obvious have no idea what Anglo-Americans say.
    – Frankie
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 4:32
  • @TomAu I don't think either Frankie or I intended any criticism. But you did say "..who have spent some time in England", from which people could easily infer that the UK was to some degree a source of this usage, and so a clarification was in order. And like I said, it's interesting that Anglo-Americans might use it to mean "thanks".
    – Rupe
    Commented Dec 10, 2016 at 21:03

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