Definition of: "cakewalk" with explanation and origin
Definition of: cakewalk with explanation and origin? Meaning of cakewalk with examples in English idiom dictionary.
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Definition of: "cakewalk" with explanation and origin
cakewalk
cakewalk
Meaning
- something that can be easily accomplished.
- an easytask.
- an activity that one can quickly learn.
Example Sentences
- I thought the course was going to be difficult, but it ended up being a cakewalk.
- Completing the physical examination was a cakewalk.
- Learning to play the piano well is no cakewalk.
Origin
The phrase has been utilized since at least the mid-to-late-1800s, and it is thought to have initially referred to a walking competition that was an African-American custom.
As it came into general usage, it referred to a jovial and silly procession, which was easily learned and entertaining to watch. The 1901 book, Stage Hypnotism: A Text Book for Occult Entertainments (Professor Leonidas, Bureau of Stage Hypnotism, Chicago: p. 81), uses the term in this sense, as does the 1906 book, Hints and Helps from Many School-Rooms (ed., Caroline Stearn Griffin, A.S. Barnes & Company: pp. 167-168). In both cases, a cakewalk is described as a light-footed walk in which a man escorts a woman around in a parade-like fashion. Hints and Helps suggested adopting the activity for pupils to engage in during recess when the weather did not permit them to play outside, while Stage Hypnotism offered it as an example of an activity that people could be hypnotically suggested to engage in. Both clearly assume a wide familiar with the term on the part of their readers.
Claude Debussy titled the final piece of his 1913 Children’s Corner piano suite, “Golliwog’s Cakewalk.”
Synonyms
- a piece of cake
- as easy as pie
- not brain surgery
- as simple as that
The Origins of cakewalk
Cake, Easy, Task, WorkEnglish
Related Dictionary
- English Definition & Meaning Dictionary
- English Idioms and phrases Dictionary
- Dictionnaire Français
- Dictionnaire d'expressions idiomatiques et de phrases en français
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English Idioms and phrases
An idiom is a common word or phrase with a figurative, non-literal meaning that is understood culturally and differs from what its composite words' denotations would suggest; i.e. the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words (although some idioms do retain their literal meanings – see the example "kick the bucket" below). By another definition, an idiom is a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements.[3] For example, an English speaker would understand the phrase "kick the bucket" to mean "to die" – and also to actually kick a bucket. Furthermore, they would understand when each meaning is being used in context.
To evoke the desired effect in the listener, idioms require a precise replication of the phrase: not even articles can be used interchangeably (e.g. "kick a bucket" only retains the literal meaning of the phrase but not the idiomatic meaning).
Idioms should not be confused with other figures of speech such as metaphors, which evoke an image by use of implicit comparisons (e.g., "the man of steel"); similes, which evoke an image by use of explicit comparisons (e.g., "faster than a speeding bullet"); or hyperbole, which exaggerates an image beyond truthfulness (e.g., "more powerful than a locomotive"). Idioms are also not to be confused with proverbs, which are simple sayings that express a truth based on common sense or practical experience.
