duck soup
1
6.1
- idiom
- Archaic
- The recipe is so simple that making this dish is truly duck soup.
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Watch on YouTubeAnd for a harmonic oscillator, this is duck soup, and we have nothing but trivial integrals involving the A's and A daggers.
- And for a harmonic oscillator, this is duck soup, and we have nothing but trivial integrals involving the A's and A daggers.
Examples
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It's duck soup.
Fiction book (1990) -
For someone with experience, solving this math problem is just duck soup.
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It's easy money, duck soup.
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It's duck soup.
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I've never done the calculation, but it should be duck soup for any of you PhDs out there.
Blog text (27) -
And for a harmonic oscillator, this is duck soup, and we have nothing but trivial integrals involving the A's and A daggers.
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As long as you follow the instructions, assembling this furniture is duck soup.
Synonyms
47
1.0
Something very easy to do
34
3.4
An activity that is very easy or pleasant, often used with no to say something is not easy
22
2.1
An easy thing to do
17
2.1
A task that is very easy to do
16
1.2
An easy task that needs little effort
13
1.0
An activity that is very easy to do
5
1.7
Very easy to do with little skill
1
4.4
An easy contest or task that someone wins with little effort
1
7.8
An easy task that needs little effort
1
3.4
An easy task that you can do without much effort
Antonyms
How Easy
Surface Forms
Morphology
duck + soup
The meaning 'very easy' is not derivable from the literal words 'duck' and 'soup'—there is no compositional relation that links a bird and a food to ease of task. This is an idiomatic/slang expression with a language-specific meaning, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents would not reliably infer the MWE's sense.
Etymology
Duck soup may come from a simple food idea: cooks could turn an old or cheap duck into a quick soup with very little work. One popular story says this picture of a cheap, easy dish led people to use duck soup to mean 'very easy to do'.