To cheep means to make the high, short, peeping sounds that baby birds make. When chicks hatch from their eggs, they immediately start to cheep loudly, calling for their parents to bring food. The sound is sharp and quick: cheep, cheep, cheep.

The word captures both the sound itself and the action of making it. You might hear sparrow chicks cheeping frantically in a nest tucked under your roof, or watch ducklings cheep as they waddle behind their mother in a line. The sound tells parent birds exactly where their babies are and signals that the chicks need attention.

People sometimes use cheep playfully to describe other small, high-pitched sounds. A squeaky door hinge might cheep when you open it slowly, or a computer game character might make cheeping noises. But the word belongs most naturally to those insistent baby birds demanding breakfast at dawn.

As a noun, a cheep is one of those short, high bird sounds: a tiny cheep from the nest can be enough to make a parent bird hurry back with food.