The exhortation to be of good cheer occurs in several passages of the New Testament in the Authorized Version of the Bible (for example in Matthew 9:2, John 16:33, and Acts 27:22). In Middle English, cheer had the meaning ‘face’. This sense of cheer is now obsolete, but the related senses of ‘countenance’ and ‘demeanour as reflected in the countenance’ survive in a number of phrases, including in good cheer and the archaic what cheer ? (how are you?).