piece of cake
A job, task or other activity that is pleasant or, by extension, easy or simple.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“The test was a piece of cake.”
“Don't worry about the interview — with your experience, it'll be a piece of cake.”
“What had seemed an insurmountable challenge to his predecessors turned out, for him, to be a piece of cake.”
first recorded 20th c.
1930s; first recorded in Ogden Nash's Primrose Path (1936); possibly related to 19th-century 'cakewalk' contests in which cakes were awarded as prizes.
- 01
cake and gingerbread
An easy or pleasant task or experience; a piece of cake.
- 02
cake crumbs
Hardly anything.
- 03
cake walk
Something extremely easy.
- 04
cakes and ale
The simple material pleasures of life.
- 05
chess piece
A person being manipulated by another, being used to some end.
- 06
cut to pieces
To utterly defeat or overwhelm.
- 07
eat one's cake and have it too
Alternative form of have one's cake and eat it too.
- 08
give and take
[Cockney slang]cake
Last updated August 10, 2026