It has transcended the context of literature and become enmeshed in popular culture, appearing in various forms of media, from political cartoons to television, as well as in cross-disciplinary studies, from business to science.

One distinguishing feature of the Alice-style Cheshire Cat is the periodic gradual disappearance of its body, leaving only one last visible trace: its iconic grin.

The first known appearance of the expression in literature is in the 18th century, in Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Second, Corrected and Enlarged Edition (1788), which contains the following entry: Cheshire cat.

The phrase appears again in print in John Wolcot's pseudonymous Peter Pindar's Pair of Lyric Epistles (1792):"Lo, like a Cheshire cat our court will grin."

A possible origin of the phrase is one favoured by the people of Cheshire, a county in England which boasts numerous dairy farms; hence the cats grin because of the abundance of milk and cream.

In 1853, Samuel Maunder offered this explanation:This phrase owes its origin to the unhappy attempts of a sign painter of that country to represent a lion rampant, which was the crest of an influential family, on the sign-boards of many of the inns.

[5] A later edition of Brewer's adds another possible explanation, similar to Maunder's, that a painter in Cheshire once used to paint grinning lions on inns.

[11] Some historians believe Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland was inspired by a carving in Croft church.

[13] In 1992, members of the Lewis Carroll Society attributed it to a gargoyle found on a pillar in St Nicolas's Church, Cranleigh, where Carroll used to travel frequently when he lived in Guildford (though this is doubtful, as he moved to Guildford some three years after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland had been published) and a carving in a church in the village of Croft-on-Tees, in the north east of England, where his father had been rector.

[14] Carroll is believed to have visited St Christopher's church in Pott Shrigley, Cheshire, which has a stone sculpture resembling the pictorial cat in the book.

Martin Gardner, author of The Annotated Alice,[5] wondered if T. S. Eliot had the Cheshire Cat in mind when writing Morning at the Window, but notes no other significant allusions in the pre-war period.

[20] In the film, Cheshire (as he is often called; or sometimes "Ches") binds the wound Alice suffered earlier by the Bandersnatch and guides her to Tarrant Hightopp, the Mad Hatter and Thackery Earwicket, the March Hare.

Throughout his appearances, "Ches" is able to make himself intangible or weightless, as well as invisible (and thus to survive decapitation), and is usually depicted in mid-air, at shoulder-height to human-sized characters.

[22] In Alice's Wonderland Bakery, a series set several generations after the Disney film, the Cheshire Cat, voiced by Max Mittelman, is depicted as an immortal, being the only character besides the Doorknob not to be represented through a descendant.

The late filmmaker Chris Marker gave his monumental documentary on the New Left movement of 1967–1977, Le fond de l'air est rouge (1977), the English title Grin without a Cat.

They end up engaging each other in combat until the Knave of Hearts arrives and throws a piece of one mushroom side into his mouth, which shrinks the Cat back to normal size, and he leaves.

In the game, Cheshire Cat is portrayed with a humanoid body and wears a long grey cloak with a red-string bell around his neck, leaving only his nose, razor-sharp teeth, and wide grin visible.

In Wonderland, Cheshire Cat is the "Guide", an important role that makes him feared by the other residents, and is compelled by Ariko's inner will to help her unlock her suppressed, traumatic memories and overcome her suicidal depression.

Due to the White Rabbit's deranged state, Cheshire Cat fulfills his role of absorbing Ariko's negative emotions, though the task puts a large strain on him.