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You are here: Home / Language / What Does the Expression “Piece of Cake” Mean and Where Did the Idiom Come From?

What Does the Expression “Piece of Cake” Mean and Where Did the Idiom Come From?

June 30, 2020 by Karen Hill

Nothing could be more immediately rewarding than a piece of cake, and to indicate delight, we sometimes say a chore was a “piece of cake.”

The expression first appears in English literature in a 1936 Ogden Nash (1902-1971) poem called “Primrose Path.”

During World War II, the phrase was adopted by British pilots to describe a target that was easy and fun to attack or destroy.

It was from there that the expression graduated into everyday English.

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Filed Under: Language

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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