Word.ws English Dictionary

one-banana problem

one-banana problem noun: a problem that should be easily resolved.

Noun

one-banana problem (plural one-banana problems)

  1. (slang) A problem that should be easily resolved.
    • It's only a one-banana problem at the most; what's taking them so long?

Forms of one-banana problem

pluralone-banana problems

Origin of one-banana problem

Derived from the idea that trained monkeys can do low-level jobs, working for bananas. It also may come from Sherlock Holmes lore; see three-pipe problem.

Questions about one-banana problem

What does one-banana problem mean?
One-banana problem means a problem that should be easily resolved.
What part of speech is one-banana problem?
One-banana problem is a noun.
What is the plural of one-banana problem?
The plural of one-banana problem is one-banana problems.

Words near one-banana problem in the dictionary

  1. one-armed bandits
  2. one-armed router
  3. one-armed routers
  4. one-bagger
  5. one-baggers
  6. one-banana problem
  7. one-banana problems
  8. one-bar prison
  9. one-bar prisons
  10. one-blink town
  11. one-blink towns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one-banana problem (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-one-banana problem.ogg.

Cite this entry: “one-banana problem.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/one-banana_problem. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.