cake walkとは 意味・読み方・使い方

別の表記

• cake-walk

発音

名詞

cake walk (plural cake walks)

1. A type of dance originating in the United States in the 19th century.
   • 1881, A.L. Bassett, “Our monthly gossip”, in Lippincott's magazine, volume 28, page 208:

     It is called the cake-walk. A large cake is prepared for the occasion, and, when the invited guests arrive on the gala evening, each young man selects a partner for the walk. After a great deal of merriment and confusion, the couples take their places on the floor and begin to march around the room singing a hymn (for the church-members are not allowed to indulge in secular music) to a good marching tune, while the matrons and married men look on and criticise the promenaders, join in the chorus, and beat time with hands and feet. When tired at last of the walking-match, the cake is duly awarded to the most graceful couple, by whom it is carried home after the supper which closes the entertainment.

2. From the mid 1900s, a game at a fair or party in which people walk around a numbered circle along to music. When the music is stopped, the caller draws a number from a jar and whoever is standing on or closest to that number wins a cake.
   • 1945, Robert L. Kilzer, “Cake-Walk Earns Money for Student Activities”, in Educational Reading Service: School activities, volume 18, page 340:

     ... each of the marchers took his place beside the number nearest to him.

3. (idiomatic) Something extremely easy.
   • 1922, New York Athletic Club, “Easy for Romig”, in The Winged foot, volume 33, page 38:

     The three mile run was a cake walk for "Blondy" Romig, of Penn State.

語源

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.

See the linked Wikipedia article for more.

発音

• (米国発音) IPA: /ˈkeɪk.wɔk/

名詞

cakewalk (plural cakewalks)

1. (historical) A contest in which cake was offered for the best dancers.
2. (music) The style of music associated with such a contest.
3. (performing arts) The dance, or strutting style of dance, associated with such a contest.
4. (idiomatic, informal) Something that is easy or simple, or that does not present a great challenge.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:easy thing

   • 1899, Willa Cather, The Westbound Train‎:

     Just as common as she is, a cakewalk sort of a name.

   • 1995, Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, →ISBN, page 88:

     Nah. The first step’s a cakewalk. We can beat the hell out of a developing infant, in any case.

派生した語

• → Dutch: cakewalk

動詞

cakewalk (third-person singular simple present cakewalks, present participle cakewalking, simple past and past participle cakewalked)

1. (intransitive) To perform the cakewalk dance.

参照