Set expressions for saying something was easy or hard
a piece of cake - plain sailing - an uphill battle - a tall order
How to use this sheet
English keeps a large stock of ready-made expressions for saying that something was effortless or that it was a grind, and speakers reach for them constantly. Each one is frozen: the words are fixed, and the whole expression behaves as a single description after the verb of being. What separates them is not meaning but register and setting - some are perfectly safe in a report, others belong only to conversation between people who know each other. The third column is therefore the one that matters most at this level.
| Expression | Meaning | Typical use and register |
|---|---|---|
| a piece of cake | Very easy indeed | Speech and informal writing; the most common of all, and a little worn. |
| a walk in the park | Easy and untroubling | Speech; very often used in the negative to say the opposite. |
| child's play | Easy for anyone with the skill | Speech and journalism; can sound dismissive of the task or the person. |
| plain sailing | Smooth and free of problems, usually after a difficult start | Speech and neutral writing; safe in a work email. |
| a breeze | Effortless | Speech only, informal; more common in American English. |
| no trouble at all | Easily done, and done gladly | Speech; a polite reply when someone thanks you or apologises for asking. |
| a hard nut to crack | A problem or a person that resists every approach | Speech and journalism; used of people as well as problems. |
| an uphill battle | A long effort against strong resistance | Speech and writing; safe in reports and news. |
| no picnic | Unpleasant and hard going | Speech, informal; understatement, usually about something you survived. |
| easier said than done | Simple to suggest, hard to carry out | Speech and writing; a mild objection to someone else's advice. |
| like pulling teeth | Painfully slow because the other side will not cooperate | Speech, informal; about extracting information or agreement from someone. |
| a tall order | A demand that is very hard to meet | Speech and writing; safe in business, often about deadlines or targets. |
In use
The exam itself was a piece of cake; getting to the hall on time was not. Persuading the finance team to release the money was like pulling teeth. Turning the whole site round before Christmas is a tall order, but it is not impossible.
Watch out
Don't worry about the interview - it's a piece of pie.
These are stored whole, not assembled from parts. Swapping in a word that means much the same thing kills the expression outright: the nouns in rows one, two and nine are locked, and a perfectly reasonable synonym in their place produces something no speaker has ever said. Read the third column as carefully as the second - rows five, nine and eleven belong to speech among people you know, and dropping one into a message to a client reads as sloppy rather than warm. Finally, row two is most often heard in the negative, which flips it into the opposite of the meaning listed beside it.