easy come, easy go

6 5.3

Do not be upset when something you get easily is lost

idiom

Informal

: fácil viene, fácil se va

She didn't seem upset about losing her job, just shrugged and said, easy come, easy go.

Examples

I won a lot of money at the casino, but easy come, easy go!
He spent all the lottery money in a month, proving that it's easy come, easy go.
When my favorite mug broke, I tried not to dwell on it—easy come, easy go.
She lost her job, but she thinks easy come, easy go.
After winning a big prize in the lottery, he spent it all quickly, saying, easy come, easy go.
When she accidentally broke her new phone, she just smiled and said, easy come, easy go.
He used to worry about losing his savings, but now he believes in easy come, easy go.

Antonyms

earned

68 2.2

Gained by someone's own hard work or skill

Surface Forms

easy come, easy go main

Morphology

easy + come, + easy + go

The proverb's meaning — that things gained with little effort can be lost just as easily — is directly inferable from the literal meanings of 'easy', 'come' and 'go' and the contrastive structure 'easy come, easy go'. This compositional logic is cross-linguistically common (many languages have equivalent proverbs), so a B1 learner who knows the words is likely to understand it.

Etymology

Easy come, easy go gives a clear picture: things that come quickly or without effort can go away just as fast. So people say it to mean 'don't worry' when you lose something you got easily.