Take the cake

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Meaning

To be the most outstanding or extreme example, for better or worse; now often used ironically of something especially surprising, annoying, or absurd.

Origin

The expression is American and is recorded by 1847 in William T. Porter's A Quarter Race in Kentucky, where the winning horse was to take the cakes. Cakes were also prizes in African American cakewalk contests, and that culture helped make the image familiar. However, the early written record does not establish that one particular cakewalk coined the idiom, so literal prize-giving and cakewalk tradition are better treated as related context rather than a proven single origin.

Research Sources

  1. Take the cake Merriam-Webster
  2. Take the Cake Phrase Finder
  3. Who takes the cake? The history of the cakewalk National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Variants

  • Take the cakes
  • Take the biscuit

Usage Examples

  • Of all the delays we endured, losing the keys on opening day really took the cake.
  • Several proposals were inventive, but Jo's low-cost design took the cake.
  • I have heard some implausible excuses, but that one takes the cake.

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