like shooting fish in a barrel en · ADP
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Meanings
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(qualifier:simile) Extremely easy; sometimes with a connotation of triumph but at other times with a connotation of being meaningless and unsatisfying.
Standing on those long straight roads with the speed detection gun was like shooting fish in a barrel, somebody said.
2005 March 29, John S. Doyle, “We're all sport crazy... but for all the wrong sports”, in Irish Independent, Ireland, retrieved 18 Jul 2012:Opponents contend that the lumbering creatures are so easy to shoot that a moose hunt is a slaughter, not a sport. "It's like shooting fish in a barrel," they say.
1982 April 2, Associated Press, “Entrants Gamble For Chance To Stalk Big Game”, in The Dispatch, USA, retrieved 18 Jul 2012, page 20:For a photographer, shooting twins at the annual Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio, must be like shooting fish in a barrel.
2003 October 24, Ken Johnson, “Art in Review: Mary Ellen Mark—‘Twins’”, in New York Times, retrieved 18 Jul 2012:
Relateds
piece of cake · walk in the park · cakewalk · breeze · piece of piss · walkover · duck soup · turkey shoot · doddle · cinch · bagatelle
Synonyms
easy as pie · like taking candy from a baby
Translations (10)
cmn 易如反掌 (extremely easy) · sv som att sno godis från småbarn (extremely easy) · fr simple comme bonjour (extremely easy) · ko 누워서 떡먹기 (extremely easy) · cmn 甕中捉鱉 /瓮中捉鳖 (extremely easy) · fr bête comme chou (extremely easy) · fr con comme la lune (extremely easy) · ru раз плюнуть (extremely easy) · ru проще пареной репы (extremely easy) · cmn 得来全不费功夫 (extremely easy)