cake-walk, n. orig. U.S.
(ˈkeɪkwɔːk)
[f. cake n. + walk n.]
1. a. ‘A walking competition among negroes, in which the couple who put on most style {oqq}take the cake{cqq}’ (Thornton). b. A dance modelled on this.
It originated among the Negroes of the southern United States.
| 1879 Harper's Mag. Oct. 799/1 Reader, didst ever attend a cake walk given by the colored folks? 1888 Farmer Americanisms s.v. Cake, In certain sections of the country, cake-walks are in vogue among the colored people. It is a walking contest, not in the matter of speed, but in style and elegance. 1897 Blackw. Mag. Mar. 341/2 ‘Cake-walks’ and frolics and preachings filled the cabins with sound and merriment. 1902 Harben Abner Daniel 53, I was doing the cake-walk with that fat Howard girl from Rome. 1947 Penguin Music Mag. May 25 Ragtime was most certainly responsible for Debussy's ‘Golliwog's Cake Walk’. |
| attrib. 1898 F. H. Smith C. West 314 A certain—to him—cake-walk cut to the coat and white duck trousers. 1901 Westm. Gaz. 3 June 3/1 Although there is a painful amount of cake-walk music. 1903 Daily Chron. 21 Apr. 7/3 The closing number in the bill will be a grand cake-walk promenade. |
c. transf. and
fig. In
quots. 1916, 1966
= ‘something easy’.
| 1863 H. Edgar Jrnl. in Montana Hist. Soc. Contrib. (1900) III. 133 Around and around that bush we went... We had a good laugh over our cake walk. 1894 ‘M. Twain’ in Critic 7 July 8/1 This Shelley biography..is a literary cake-walk. 1916 J. B. Cooper Coo-oo-ee xi. 153 Whether they would give him victory in a fight that would not be a cake-walk, he did not know. 1966 J. M. Brett Cargo of Spent Evil x. 87 This should be a cakewalk for you. |
2. A form of entertainment consisting of a promenade moved by machinery on which people walk to the accompaniment of music.
| 1909 Oxford Times 11 Sept. 9/5 In dealing with the fair itself there were really no new features..except that of the Brooklyn cake-walk, an ingenious rocking platform which gave those who patronised it the sensation of a cake-walk dance... The novelty was in operation at the White City last year. 1914 Ibid. 12 Sept. 10/3 The absence of the popular joy-wheel, the cake-walk [etc.]. 1968 D. Braithwaite Fairground Archit. p. ix, The boneshaking old Cake-walk changes its name to suit the fashion of the day, becoming at one time the Jolly Jersey Bounce and more recently the Rock an' Roll. |
Hence
ˈcake-walk v. intr., to walk or dance in the manner of a cake-walk (sense 1); also
transf. and
fig. So
ˈcake-walker;
ˈcake-walking vbl. n. and ppl. a.| 1898 Williams & Walker Let. 16 Jan. in J. W. Johnson Black Manhattan (1930) x. 105 We, the undersigned world-renowned cake-walkers..hereby challenge you to compete with us in a cake-walking match. 1898 Daily Tel. 14 Mar., Cake-walking is, in fact, a graceful motion, conducted upon the toes and ball of the foot. 1898 Westm. Gaz. 3 Dec. 7/7 The cake walkers at Covent Garden. 1904 Daily Chron. 22 Mar. 4/7 The genuinely tip-top men Were those who never cake-walked. 1904 ‘Saki’ Reginald 90 A mouse used to cake-walk about my room. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 17 Aug. 8/1 French singers, cake-walking coons, and fifth-rate English dancers. 1927 Melody Maker Sept. 931/2 The syndicate..cake-walks to prosperity. 1958 Blesh & Janis They all played Ragtime 3 Soon the French were cakewalking in the streets of Paris to le temps du chiffon. Ibid. v. 99 Cakewalking developed into a real art. 1967 V. Nabokov Speak, Memory (ed. 2) xv. 309 Pale-blue and pink underwear cakewalking on a clothesline. |