See cakewalk on Wiktionary
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"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/Nl-cakewalk.ogg/Nl-cakewalk.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Nl-cakewalk.ogg"
}
],
"word": "cakewalk"
}
{
"categories": [
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"Dutch non-lemma forms",
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"en:Musical genres"
],
"etymology_number": 2,
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"args": {},
"expansion": "See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.",
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"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "nl",
"2": "verb form"
},
"expansion": "cakewalk",
"name": "head"
}
],
"hyphenations": [
{
"parts": [
"cake",
"walk"
]
}
],
"lang": "Dutch",
"lang_code": "nl",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"form_of": [
{
"word": "cakewalken"
}
],
"glosses": [
"inflection of cakewalken:",
"first-person singular present indicative"
],
"links": [
[
"cakewalken",
"cakewalken#Dutch"
]
],
"tags": [
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"form-of",
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"present",
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},
{
"form_of": [
{
"word": "cakewalken"
}
],
"glosses": [
"inflection of cakewalken:",
"second-person singular present indicative"
],
"links": [
[
"cakewalken",
"cakewalken#Dutch"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"inflection of cakewalken:",
"(in case of inversion) second-person singular present indicative"
],
"raw_tags": [
"in case of inversion"
],
"tags": [
"form-of",
"indicative",
"present",
"second-person",
"singular"
]
},
{
"form_of": [
{
"word": "cakewalken"
}
],
"glosses": [
"inflection of cakewalken:",
"imperative"
],
"links": [
[
"cakewalken",
"cakewalken#Dutch"
]
],
"tags": [
"form-of",
"imperative"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "Nl-cakewalk.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/Nl-cakewalk.ogg/Nl-cakewalk.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Nl-cakewalk.ogg"
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],
"word": "cakewalk"
}
{
"categories": [
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"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English verbs",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 2 entries",
"Pages with entries",
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"Terms with Portuguese translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations",
"Terms with Swedish translations",
"en:Dances",
"en:Musical genres"
],
"descendants": [
{
"lang": "Dutch",
"lang_code": "nl",
"raw_tags": [
"borrowed"
],
"word": "cakewalk"
}
],
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"args": {
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"2": "cake",
"3": "walk"
},
"expansion": "cake + walk",
"name": "com"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From cake + walk. Originally an African-American form of dance and music that developed after the Civil War, later popularised by minstrel shows. It was danced at social events, with the best dancers often receiving cake as a prize. It derives from dance competitions by plantation slaves in which the style of dance lampooned the ballroom dances of the slaveowners. Slaveowners seem to have found the competitions entertaining and the habit of offering cake may originate from this period. The name is sometimes also applied to the dance's precursor on the plantations. Doing the cakewalk well required virtuosity, and a major esthetic aspect of that virtuosity was the apparent ease with which the dance was performed. This gave rise to the idiom as easy as a cakewalk, which in turn led to the sense of cakewalk as something that is easy.\nSee the linked Wikipedia article for more.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "cakewalks",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
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"args": {},
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"name": "en-noun"
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],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English terms with historical senses"
],
"glosses": [
"A contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers."
],
"links": [
[
"contest",
"contest"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(historical) A contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers."
],
"tags": [
"historical"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"en:Music"
],
"glosses": [
"The style of music associated with such a contest."
],
"links": [
[
"music",
"music"
],
[
"style",
"style"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(music) The style of music associated with such a contest."
],
"topics": [
"entertainment",
"lifestyle",
"music"
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"The dance, or strutting style of dance, associated with such a contest."
],
"links": [
[
"performing arts",
"performing arts"
],
[
"dance",
"dance"
],
[
"strut",
"strut"
]
],
"qualifier": "performing arts",
"raw_glosses": [
"(performing arts) The dance, or strutting style of dance, associated with such a contest."
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English informal terms",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
28,
36
]
],
"ref": "1899, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train:",
"text": "Just as common as she is, a cakewalk sort of a name.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
24,
32
]
],
"ref": "1995, Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2, New York, N.Y.: Farrar Straus Giroux, →ISBN, page 88:",
"text": "Nah. The first step’s a cakewalk. We can beat the hell out of a developing infant, in any case.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Something that is easy or simple, or that does not present a great challenge."
],
"links": [
[
"easy",
"easy"
],
[
"simple",
"simple"
],
[
"challenge",
"challenge"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic, informal) Something that is easy or simple, or that does not present a great challenge."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "bagatelle"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "waltz"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "breeze"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"tags": [
"obsolete"
],
"word": "cake and gingerbread"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "cakewalk"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "child's play"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "cinch"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "doddle"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "doss"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "duck soup"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "easy pickings"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "gimme"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "layup"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "low-hanging fruit"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "no-brainer"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "open and shut case"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "picnic"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "piece of cake"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"tags": [
"slang",
"vulgar"
],
"word": "piece of piss"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "plain sailing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"tags": [
"archaic"
],
"word": "plane sailing"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "slam dunk"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "snap"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "walk in the park"
},
{
"source": "Thesaurus:easy thing",
"word": "walkover"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈkeɪk.wɔk/",
"tags": [
"US"
]
},
{
"audio": "en-us-cakewalk.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bf/En-us-cakewalk.ogg/En-us-cakewalk.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/En-us-cakewalk.ogg"
},
{
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"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/62/En-au-cakewalk.ogg/En-au-cakewalk.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/En-au-cakewalk.ogg"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "betka"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"lang_code": "pt",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "pera doce"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "chanfa"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "something easy",
"word": "pan comido"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "bolado"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"lang_code": "sv",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "barnlek"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"lang_code": "sv",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "lekverk"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"lang_code": "sv",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"common-gender"
],
"word": "baggis"
}
],
"word": "cakewalk"
}
{
"categories": [
"English compound terms",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English nouns",
"English verbs",
"Entries with translation boxes",
"Pages with 2 entries",
"Pages with entries",
"Terms with Polish translations",
"Terms with Portuguese translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations",
"Terms with Swedish translations",
"en:Dances",
"en:Musical genres"
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "cake",
"3": "walk"
},
"expansion": "cake + walk",
"name": "com"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From cake + walk. Originally an African-American form of dance and music that developed after the Civil War, later popularised by minstrel shows. It was danced at social events, with the best dancers often receiving cake as a prize. It derives from dance competitions by plantation slaves in which the style of dance lampooned the ballroom dances of the slaveowners. Slaveowners seem to have found the competitions entertaining and the habit of offering cake may originate from this period. The name is sometimes also applied to the dance's precursor on the plantations. Doing the cakewalk well required virtuosity, and a major esthetic aspect of that virtuosity was the apparent ease with which the dance was performed. This gave rise to the idiom as easy as a cakewalk, which in turn led to the sense of cakewalk as something that is easy.\nSee the linked Wikipedia article for more.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "cakewalks",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "cakewalking",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "cakewalked",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "cakewalked",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "cakewalk (third-person singular simple present cakewalks, present participle cakewalking, simple past and past participle cakewalked)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English intransitive verbs"
],
"glosses": [
"To perform the cakewalk dance."
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive) To perform the cakewalk dance."
],
"tags": [
"intransitive"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"ipa": "/ˈkeɪk.wɔk/",
"tags": [
"US"
]
},
{
"audio": "en-us-cakewalk.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bf/En-us-cakewalk.ogg/En-us-cakewalk.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/En-us-cakewalk.ogg"
},
{
"audio": "en-au-cakewalk.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/6/62/En-au-cakewalk.ogg/En-au-cakewalk.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/En-au-cakewalk.ogg"
}
],
"word": "cakewalk"
}
Download raw JSONL data for cakewalk meaning in All languages combined (12.2kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-02-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (f492ef9 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.