| E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898. |
| | | Cake. | | |
|
To take the cake. To carry off the prize. The reference is to the prize-cake to the person who succeeded best in a given competition. In Notes and Queries (Feb. 27th, 1892, p. 176) a correspondent of New York tells us of a “cake walk” by the Southern negroes. It consists of walking round the prize cake in pairs, and umpires decide which pair walk the most gracefully. In ancient Greece a cake was the award of the toper who held out the longest. | 1 |
|
In Ireland the best dancer in a dancing competition was rewarded, at one time, by a cake. | 2 |
| |
“A churn-dish stuck into the earth supported on its flat end a cake, which was to become the prize of the best dancer… . At length the competitors yielded their claims to a young man … who, taking the cake, placed it gallantly in the lap of a pretty girl to whom … he was about to be married.”—Bartlett and Coyne: Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 64. |
|
|
You cannot eat your cake and have it too. You cannot spend your money and yet keep it. You cannot serve God and Mammon. | 3 |
|
Your cake [or my cake] is dough. All my swans are turned to geese. Occisa est res tua [or mea]. Mon affaire est manquée; my project has failed. | 4 |
| |
| | |
|
|
