nothing to it
1
1.0
- idiom
- Informal
- Learning to swim is easy; there's nothing to it once you get the hang of it.
- Nothing to it," said
- Nothing to it, really
- Just nothing to it
Examples
-
You see, there's nothing to it.
-
There was really nothing to it.
-
There was nothing to it.
-
There is nothing to it.
-
There was nothing to it.
Fiction book (1995) -
Why work when there is nothing to it?
Blog text (32) -
Look, there's nothing to it.
-
Look how simple it is; there's really nothing to it.
Fiction book (1993) -
My grandfather used to say there's nothing to it.
-
It's actually quite simple—so simple that there is nothing to it.
Blog text (19)
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Not hard to do, understand, or achieve
∞
1.0
Easy to understand or do
5
1.7
Very easy to do with little skill
1
3.4
Very easy to do and understand
1
2.8
Easy to do and without problems after it starts
1
7.8
An easy task that needs little effort
1
3.8
Simple and plain with no extra things or decorations
Very easy to do and understand
Antonyms
How Difficult
∞
1.4
∞
1.6
274
4.4
∞
1.0
- Informal
1
1.0
28
2.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
nothing + to + it
The sense 'very easy' is directly derivable from the parts: 'nothing' (no thing) + 'to it' (with respect to it) yields 'there is nothing (difficult) with/to it' — i.e., no difficulty or complication. This is a common, compositional pattern (absence + relation) found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will very likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Nothing to it paints the image of a job with nothing inside it, like a box with no parts to fix. So, if there is nothing to it, there is nothing to do and the phrase means 'very easy'.