Word.ws English Dictionary

take the cake

take the cake verb: used as an affirmation or accolade of someone occupying the top rank in a comparison or contest; to win or be the best (at).

Verb

take the cake (third-person singular simple present takes the cake, present participle taking the cake, simple past took the cake, past participle taken the cake)

  1. (US, colloquial, idiomatic) Used as an affirmation or accolade of someone occupying the top rank in a comparison or contest; to win or be the best (at).
    • Thanks! You guys take the cake.
    • Once the party was over, everyone agreed that Elizabeth and her Harriet Tubman getup had taken the cake.

Synonyms of take the cake

Forms of take the cake

third-person singular presenttakes the cake
present participletaking the cake
pasttook the cake
past participletaken the cake

Origin of take the cake

Attested since circa 1870. Originally used in reference to the winners of cake walk competitions in black communities of the southern USA in the 19th and early 20th centuries, who were said to have "taken the cake", which was oftentimes the prize.

Questions about take the cake

What does take the cake mean?
Take the cake means used as an affirmation or accolade of someone occupying the top rank in a comparison or contest; to win or be the best (at).
What part of speech is take the cake?
Take the cake is a verb.
What is the past tense of take the cake?
The past tense of take the cake is took the cake.

Words near take the cake in the dictionary

  1. take the biscuit
  2. take the bitter with the sweet
  3. take the bread out of someone's mouth
  4. take the browns to the super bowl
  5. take the bull by the horns
  6. take the cake
  7. take the cash and let the credit go
  8. take the chair
  9. take the chill off
  10. take the Chiltern Hundreds
  11. take the cloth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: take 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-take the cake.wav.

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