轻而易举
- Literal
- light and easy to lift
- Figurative
- With the greatest ease and hardly any effort; very often used in the negative to stress that something is harder than it looks.
Where does 轻而易举 come from?
It comes not from an anecdote but from a commentary on a classic. In the 《诗经》 (Book of Songs), the ode "Zheng min" quotes a saying: virtue is as light as a hair, yet few manage to lift it. Annotating that line in his 《诗集传》, the Song-dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi explained that everyone thinks virtue very light and easy to lift, and yet no one manages to raise it. The phrase 轻而易举 survived from that gloss and lost its moral tone: today it describes any task done without effort, and very often appears in the negative (不是轻而易举的事).
Source (出处): 朱熹《诗集传》
How is 轻而易举 used? Two examples
- 这道题对他来说轻而易举，五分钟就做完了。
That problem was child's play for him; he finished it in five minutes.
- 想在一线城市买房，可不是轻而易举的事。
Buying a home in one of the big first-tier cities is no easy feat.
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