it's a piece of cake
it's easy
TRANSLATION
it's a piece of cake = das ist einfach, das ist ein Kinderspiel, that's no piece of cake = das ist ziemlich schwierig --- GOOGLE INDEX it's a piece of cake: approximately 260,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Given the number of cancellations that the hotels are facing, getting a room upgrade should be a PIECE OF CAKE…
(www.sify.com)
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If you have one TV set and one antenna, hooking up a digital converter box is a PIECE OF CAKE.
(St. Joseph News Press)
(www.sify.com)
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If you have one TV set and one antenna, hooking up a digital converter box is a PIECE OF CAKE.
(St. Joseph News Press)
Did you
know?
a piece of cake
idiom
- something that is very easy to do
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000)
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WORD ORIGIN
The Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings says that the expression "it's a piece of cake" was first used in the mid-twentieth century.
The light-verse writer Ogden Nash had this line in Primrose Path from 1936: Her picture's in the papers now, and life's a piece of cake. This probably stemmed from the simple idea that sitting around eating a piece of cake is a pleasurable and easy leisure activity.
During World War II, British soldiers used it to describe a mission that was extremely easy to accomplish.
The phrase may have also derived from a similar saying "as easy as pie." In the 1890s, the word pie was common slang for something that was easy. In addition, one can also say "as easy as falling off a log" or "as easy as 123."
Cake, as used in the context of something easy or pleasurable, is applied in other idioms:
take the cake - meaning to carry off the honours. It is often used to express surprise such as "Well that takes the cake!"
it's a cakewalk - another way to say that something is easy, a phrase that derives from a 19th-century public entertainment among African Americans in which walkers performing the most accomplished or amusing steps won cakes as prizes.
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"This computer program is a piece of cake to learn and use."
idiom
- something that is very easy to do
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000)
---
WORD ORIGIN
The Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings says that the expression "it's a piece of cake" was first used in the mid-twentieth century.
The light-verse writer Ogden Nash had this line in Primrose Path from 1936: Her picture's in the papers now, and life's a piece of cake. This probably stemmed from the simple idea that sitting around eating a piece of cake is a pleasurable and easy leisure activity.
During World War II, British soldiers used it to describe a mission that was extremely easy to accomplish.
The phrase may have also derived from a similar saying "as easy as pie." In the 1890s, the word pie was common slang for something that was easy. In addition, one can also say "as easy as falling off a log" or "as easy as 123."
Cake, as used in the context of something easy or pleasurable, is applied in other idioms:
take the cake - meaning to carry off the honours. It is often used to express surprise such as "Well that takes the cake!"
it's a cakewalk - another way to say that something is easy, a phrase that derives from a 19th-century public entertainment among African Americans in which walkers performing the most accomplished or amusing steps won cakes as prizes.
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SMUGGLE OWAD INTO TODAY'S CONVERSATION:
"This computer program is a piece of cake to learn and use."
