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piece-of-cake

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

13 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

Wiktionary

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "piece-of-cake", 13-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "piece-of-cake" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "piece-of-cake" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

piece of cake is aEnglishnoun. It means: A job, task or other activity that is pleasant or, by extension, easy or simple. Pronounced /ˈpiːsə(v)ˈkeɪk/.

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Key facts for piece of cake
PropertyValue
Headwordpiece of cake
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/ˈpiːsə(v)ˈkeɪk/
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

piece of cake is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for piece of cake is 13 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpiːsə(v)ˈkeɪk/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for piece of cake in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: Attested since 1936, originally in American English. Possibly from cakewalk, or the notion of facility that derives from many cakes having agreeable tastes, and hence being ‘easy’ to consume. Compare French être du gâteau (literally “to be a cake”), être de… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is piece of cake, spelled P-I-E-C-E- -O-F- -C-A-K-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A job, task or other activity that is pleasant or, by extension, easy or simple.
  2. 2
    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see piece, cake.

Etymology

Attested since 1936, originally in American English. Possibly from cakewalk, or the notion of facility that derives from many cakes having agreeable tastes, and hence being ‘easy’ to consume. Compare French être du gâteau (literally “to be a cake”), être de la tarte (literally “to be a pie”), both meaning "to be easy, to be a piece of cake".

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "piece of cake"?
"piece of cake" is spelled P-I-E-C-E- -O-F- -C-A-K-E. The IPA pronunciation is /ˈpiːsə(v)ˈkeɪk/.
What does "piece of cake" mean?
As a noun, "piece of cake" means: A job, task or other activity that is pleasant or, by extension, easy or simple.
How do you pronounce "piece of cake"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "piece of cake" is /ˈpiːsə(v)ˈkeɪk/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "piece of cake"?
Attested since 1936, originally in American English. Possibly from cakewalk, or the notion of facility that derives from many cakes having agreeable tastes, and hence being ‘easy’ to consume. Compare French être du gâteau (literally “to be a cake”... See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.