Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Something easily accomplished: synonym: breeze.
- noun A public entertainment of the 1800s among African Americans in which walkers performing the most accomplished or amusing steps won cakes as prizes.
- noun A strutting dance, often performed in minstrel shows.
- noun The music for this dance.
- intransitive verb To achieve or accomplish something easily.
- intransitive verb To perform a strutting dance.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers. - noun music The
style ofmusic associated with such a contest. - noun performing arts The
dance , or style of dance associated with such a contest. - noun idiomatic Something that is
easy orsimple , or that does not present a greatchallenge .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a strutting dance based on a march; was performed in minstrel shows; originated as a competition among Black dancers to win a cake
- verb perform the cakewalk dance
- noun an easy accomplishment
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Some etymologists believe the term cakewalk and piece of cake and takes the cake came about when contest winners in rural areas of the United States were given cakes as prizes, for just about any competition.
Let Me Eat Cake Leslie F. Miller 2009
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Some etymologists believe the term cakewalk and piece of cake and takes the cake came about when contest winners in rural areas of the United States were given cakes as prizes, for just about any competition.
Let Me Eat Cake Leslie F. Miller 2009
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The only way McCainiac gets a "cakewalk" is if if it's Hill/McCain and Bloomberg jumps in (which is highly likely in that scenario).
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Obama is a fighter ... no one thought it would ever have come to him being on the verge of the nomination, HIllary thouight it was going to be a cakewalk from the start.
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* No one in the Bush administration ever said the war would be a "cakewalk" --- that term was used by a private consultant.
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Even better, once there had been such a demonstration, a guaranteed "cakewalk" -- as, say, in Iraq -- who would ever dare stand up to American power again?
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Republican Ken Adelman, one of the architects of the Iraq war who once infamously claimed that post-war Iraq would be a "cakewalk" - and who is widely hated by the far left for his
Sister Toldjah 2008
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The cakewalk was a dance performed by slaves in the Deep South, usually on Sundays.
The Bushman Way of Tracking God PhD Bradford Keeney 2010
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Most people were calling a cakewalk -- you know, be prepared to turn off your television sets early, because this isn't much of a game you're about to watch -- when in fact it turned out to be really one of the great legendary football games in our country's history.
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The following week he was summoned before the disciplinary committee of his church and charged with unchristian conduct, in the following particulars, to wit: dancing, and participating in a sinful diversion called a cakewalk, which was calculated to bring the church into disrepute and make it the mockery of sinners.
treeseed commented on the word cakewalk
Cakewalk is a traditional African American form of music and dance which originated among slaves in the Southern United States. The form was originally known as the chalk line walk; it takes its name from competitions slaveholders sometimes held, in which they offered slices of hoecake as prizes for the best dancers. It has since evolved from a parody of ballroom dancing to a fun fair like dance where participants dance in a circle in the hopes of winning a free cake.
_Wikipedia
February 26, 2008
ruzuzu commented on the word cakewalk
"Vaudeville actress Aida Overton Walker refused to act in the mammy stereotype, though became known for performing the cakewalk with her husband, a dance originally designed to mock slave owners’ gaudy dance moves and later used as a tool to mock black dancers.
Dora Dean, another black actress of the time, similarly rejected minstrel stereotypes. She performed the cakewalk with her husband and helped influence public views that black women were as elegant as their white peers, evidenced in her professional nickname “The Black Venus.” Both women, though restricted by racist laws and an unfair social order, were able to earn and control assets that were essentially barred from them in other facets of society."
-- http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-heavily-judged-female-entertainers-who-crushed-stereotypes-in-the-old-west
January 27, 2016
fbharjo commented on the word cakewalk
Why isn't a cakewalk called a picumference? Who would be pie-faced then?
January 27, 2016