American cheese

noun

1. A common processed cheese, yellow or white in color and mild in flavor, with a medium-firm consistency.

   “Near-synonyms: rat-trap cheese, rat cheese, government cheese”

   “Many of you other brothers can't deny that American cheese on white bread with yellow mustard is a guilty pleasure that reminds us of our childhood.”

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see American, cheese: any cheese made in America.

   “The opinions on importation of American wheat and steel did not seem as negative as those against importation of American cheese and beer.”

   “After all, I’ve spent 15 years following the U.S. cheese scene, first as a lone blogger and now as an author of two cheese books, so I’ve put in my time as a turophile. I don’t let anyone conflate “American cheese” with Kraft Singles—not when there is so much good craft cheese being made stateside. Cheese has come a long way in the U.S. since its production became industrialized in the 1800s, when we began pooling our milk supply to pump out cheap factory-made blocks. It took a brave band of dairy dames in the 1970s and ’80s—fondly known as “the goat ladies” in cheese circles—to kick off a full-blown artisan movement around the country.”