child's play

English

WOTD – 15 May 2024

Etymology

From child +‎ -’s +‎ play, originally referring literally to play by a child.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃaɪldz ˌpleɪ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

child's play (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) Something particularly easy or simple.

   Synonyms: kid stuff, piece of cake

   Compared to my last job, this is child’s play.

   • 1839 (indicated as 1840), Thomas Carlyle, “Laissez-Faire”, in Chartism, London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, pages 52–53:

     The brawny craftsman finds it no child's play to mould his unpliant rugged masses; neither is guidance of men a dilettantism: what it becomes when treated as a dilettantism, we may see!

   • 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter III, in The History of England from the Accession of James II, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC, page 322:

     In every county there were elderly gentlemen who had seen service which was no child's play.

   • 1914, Robert Frost, “A Servant to Servants”, in North of Boston, London: David Nutt […], →OCLC, page 74:

     He'd pull his bars apart like bow and bow-string, / And let them go and make them twang until / His hands had worn them smooth as any ox-bow. / And then he'd crow as if he thought that child's play— / The only fun he had.

   • 1949 January–February, F. G. Roe, “I Saw Three Englands–1”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 11:

     I knew something of the railway engineer's uncanny genius for finding a path through such barriers if any path existed; yet I also knew the path would be no child's play.

Translations

something particularly easy or simple

• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 兒戲／儿戏 (ji⁴ hei³)

  Hokkien: 兒戲／儿戏 (jî-hì; lî-hì)

  Mandarin: 兒戲／儿戏 (zh) (érxì), 如同兒戲／如同儿戏 (rútóng'érxì), 很容易的事 (hěn róngyì de shì), 小兒科／小儿科 (zh) (xiǎo'érkē)

• Dutch: kinderspel (nl) n
• Esperanto: infana ludo
• Finnish: lastenleikki (fi)
• French: jeu d’enfant (fr)
• German: Kinderspiel (de) n, Spaziergang (de) m
• Greek:

  Ancient: παιδιή (paidiḗ)

• Hungarian: gyerekjáték (hu)
• Icelandic: barnaleikur (is) m, auðveldur (is) m, innanhandar, leika sér að, leikur (is) m
• Italian: Italian gioco da bambini, gioco da ragazzi
• Japanese: 朝飯前のこと (ja) (あさめしまえのこと, asameshimae-no koto), 児戯 (ja) (jigi), お茶の子 (ja) (おちゃのこ, o-cha-no ko)
• Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: barnemat (no) m

  Nynorsk: barnemat m

• Plautdietsch: Spälarie f
• Polish: dziecinada (pl) f, pikuś (pl) m
• Portuguese: brincadeira de criança f
• Romanian: joacă de copil f
• Russian: игру́шки (ru) f pl (igrúški), пустяки́ (ru) m pl (pustjakí), се́мечки (ru) n pl (sémečki)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: играрија f

  Roman: igrarija (sh) f

• Spanish: juego de niños m, pan comido (es) m, una papa (es) f (Argentina)
• Swedish: barnlek (sv) c
• Turkish: çocuk oyuncağı (tr)
• Welsh: chwarae bach m

See also

• easy as pie
• easy peasy

Further reading

• Child's Play (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia