bowl of cherries - Glite Dictionary

Examples

♪ ♪ Life is just a bowl of cherries ♪ ♪ so live and laugh at it all ♪ ♪ wah ♪ ♪ laugh at it all ♪ hi, sweetie.

Pennies from Heaven (1981)
After winning the lottery, he felt like life was a bowl of cherries.
There's no bowl of cherries for them at all.

Blog text (6)
♪ The sweet things in life to you were just loaned ♪ ♪ so how gonna you lose what you've never owned? ♪ ♪ Life is just a bowl of cherries ♪

Being Julia (2004)
♪ Life is just a bowl of cherries ♪ ♪ don't take it serious life's too mysterious ♪ ♪ you work, you save you worry so ♪ ♪ but you can't take your dough when you go ♪

Being Julia (2004)
♪ Life is just a bowl of cherries ♪ ♪ don't make it serious life's too mysterious ♪ ♪ you work, you save, you worry so ♪ ♪ but you can't take your dough when you go, go, go ♪ ♪ so keep repeating... ♪

Being Julia (2004)
With sunny weather and good friends, her vacation felt like a bowl of cherries.
Having a relaxing Sunday with a book is my idea of a bowl of cherries.

Antonyms

hardship

128 3.4

A time of serious difficulty, often with little money or food

tricky situation

4 3.7

A difficult situation that is hard to deal with

How Pleasant

bowl of cherries

Informal

1 6.0

dream

∞ 1.0

mixed bag

Informal

17 3.7

mess

∞ 1.0

problem

∞ 1.2

Surface Forms

bowl of cherries singular

bowls of cherries plural

Morphology

bowl + of + cherry

The literal image of a 'bowl' containing 'cherries' is directly derivable from the constituents and cherries carry positive, pleasant connotations, so learners might infer a general pleasantness. However, the conventionalized idiomatic extension to mean 'a pleasant or easy situation' is a metaphorical, language-specific mapping that is not fully predictable from the parts without prior exposure.

Etymology

The idiom bowl of cherries comes from a simple picture: a bowl full of bright, sweet cherries, a small, perfect treat. So calling something a bowl of cherries means it is 'very pleasant or enjoyable'.