Meaning
An informal way of saying that a task or activity is very easy or requires little effort.
Origin
The earliest known figurative print evidence is in Ogden Nash's 1935 collection The Primrose Path, where he describes life as a piece of cake. Cake already had positive associations as a treat or good thing, which makes the metaphor understandable, but the evidence does not reveal a particular act of coinage. No early citation demonstrates the often repeated claim that the idiom evolved directly from African American cakewalks or from take the cake.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- A piece of cake
Usage Examples
- Once the templates were in place, producing the monthly report was a piece of cake.
- The illustrated guide made what looked like a difficult repair a piece of cake.
- Rina expected the interview to be intimidating, but the conversation was a piece of cake.