Word.ws English Dictionary

icing on the cake

icing on the cake noun: a thing which intensifies the appreciation of something already good, or (ironic) the regretting of something already bad.

Noun

icing on the cake (plural (both rare) icings on the cake or icings on the cakes)

  1. (idiomatic) A thing which intensifies the appreciation of something already good, or (ironic) the regretting of something already bad.
    • We went out for dinner and dancing and the icing on the cake was when my boyfriend proposed to me as we danced.
    • I was having a really bad day at work, but the icing on the cake was getting soaked by a car passing through a puddle.

Examples of icing on the cake in a sentence

  • With such advantages as these, the superior thermal efficiency of the diesel becomes no more than the icing on the cake.1957 August, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 564:
  • The—” “The icing on the cake,” Dana said.2013, Alison Kent, The Icing on the Cake, Hachette UK, →ISBN:
  • And if a service to Walsall can be funded, that will be the icing on the cake for two areas that have been without a railway station for more than 50 years.2026 January 21, Peter Plisner, “Rail's resurgence in the Midlands”, in RAIL, number 1053, page 35:

Synonyms of icing on the cake

Forms of icing on the cake

plural (rare)icings on the cake
plural (rare)icings on the cakes

Questions about icing on the cake

What does icing on the cake mean?
Icing on the cake means a thing which intensifies the appreciation of something already good, or (ironic) the regretting of something already bad.
How do you use icing on the cake in a sentence?
With such advantages as these, the superior thermal efficiency of the diesel becomes no more than the icing on the cake.
What part of speech is icing on the cake?
Icing on the cake is a noun.

Words near icing on the cake in the dictionary

  1. icilin
  2. icily
  3. iciness
  4. icing
  5. icing down
  6. icing on the cake
  7. icing out
  8. icing over
  9. icing sugar
  10. icing sugars
  11. icing up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: icing on the cake (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-the icing on the cake.ogg.

Cite this entry: “icing on the cake.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/icing_on_the_cake. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.