See cakewalk in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for cakewalk meaning in English (7.8kB)
{
"etymology_templates": [
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"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.",
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"A contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers."
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"(historical) A contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers."
],
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{
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{
"_dis": "29 64 3 5 0",
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"orig": "en:Musical genres",
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"glosses": [
"The style of music associated with such a contest."
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"id": "en-cakewalk-en-noun-YiHmzK8E",
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[
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"(music) The style of music associated with such a contest."
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"glosses": [
"The dance, or strutting style of dance associated with such a contest."
],
"id": "en-cakewalk-en-noun-iZZc~nf7",
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[
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[
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"(performing arts) The dance, or strutting style of dance associated with such a contest."
]
},
{
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1899, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train",
"text": "Just as common as she is, a cakewalk sort of a name.",
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],
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"Something that is easy or simple, or that does not present a great challenge."
],
"id": "en-cakewalk-en-noun-0FZk3dHA",
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"(idiomatic) Something that is easy or simple, or that does not present a great challenge."
],
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"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0 100",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "betka"
},
{
"_dis1": "0 0 0 100",
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
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"word": "pera doce"
}
]
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"forms": [
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{
"form": "cakewalking",
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{
"form": "cakewalked",
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"pos": "verb",
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],
"glosses": [
"To perform the cakewalk dance."
],
"id": "en-cakewalk-en-verb-SQjOMw3y",
"raw_glosses": [
"(intransitive) To perform the cakewalk dance."
],
"tags": [
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"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.",
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{
"categories": [
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"A contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers."
],
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"(historical) A contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers."
],
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"(music) The style of music associated with such a contest."
],
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"The dance, or strutting style of dance associated with such a contest."
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"(performing arts) The dance, or strutting style of dance associated with such a contest."
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"text": "Just as common as she is, a cakewalk sort of a name.",
"type": "quotation"
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"Something that is easy or simple, or that does not present a great challenge."
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"(idiomatic) Something that is easy or simple, or that does not present a great challenge."
],
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"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "betka"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "something easy",
"tags": [
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"word": "pera doce"
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"English terms with IPA pronunciation",
"English terms with audio links",
"English verbs",
"en:Dances",
"en:Musical genres"
],
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"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.",
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"glosses": [
"To perform the cakewalk dance."
],
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"(intransitive) To perform the cakewalk dance."
],
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.