easy
 I. adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a bit better/older/easier etc
▪ I feel a bit better now.
a simple/easy matter (=something that is easy to do)
▪ Putting together the bookcases is a fairly simple matter.
a simple/easy solution
▪ There is no easy solution to this problem.
an easy mistake (to make)
▪ She looks like her sister, so it’s an easy mistake to make.
an easy movement (=without effort)
▪ She swung her legs off the bed in one easy movement.
an easy option (also a soft option British English) (= a choice which is not difficult, or which needs the least effort)
▪ For most people, divorce is never an easy option.
an easy victory
▪ Arsenal expected an easy victory.
an easy walk
▪ From here it is an easy walk to the summit.
an easy way
▪ Here’s an easy way to cut up a mango.
an easy win
▪ The Australian appeared to be heading for an easy win.
an easy/difficult child (=easy or difficult to deal with)
▪ Marcus was a very happy, easy child.
an easy/soft target
▪ Some criminals now regard churches as easy targets.
be easy to imagine
▪ It’s easy to imagine how the change in the law caused a lot of confusion.
be hard/easy/impossible etc to please
▪ She’s hard to please. Everything has to be perfect.
difficult/easy to spot
▪ Drug addicts are fairly easy to spot.
difficult/hard/easy etc to guess
▪ It’s hard to guess his age because he dyes his hair.
difficult/impossible/easy/possible etc to detect
easy access
▪ a villa with easy access to the sea
easy chair
easy charm (=relaxed charm)
▪ Hudson was full of easy charm and smiles.
easy listening
easy money (=money that you earn easily)
▪ For many, selling drugs seems like easy money.
easy pickings
▪ There are easy pickings for thieves at these big outdoor concerts.
easy to clean
▪ Is it easy to clean?
easy
▪ These questions should be easy for you.
easy/difficult/hard etc to follow
▪ The plot is a little difficult to follow.
easy/difficult/simple etc to use
▪ Drop-down menus make the program very easy to use.
far better/easier etc
▪ The new system is far better than the old one.
▪ There are a far greater number of women working in television than twenty years ago.
find it hard/easy/difficult etc (to do sth)
▪ Hyperactive children find it difficult to concentrate.
find sth/sb easy/useful/interesting etc
▪ She found the work very dull.
▪ Lots of women I know find him attractive.
▪ I found them quite easy to use.
free and easy
▪ the free-and-easy atmosphere of the local pub
how much better/nicer/easier etc
▪ I was surprised to see how much better she was looking.
▪ How much better life would be if we returned to the values of the past!
it is easy to exaggerate sth
▪ It’s all too easy to exaggerate the importance of these rather minor factors.
it is easy to overestimate sth (=used to say that something is not as important as some people think)
▪ It is easy to overestimate the effect of prison on criminals.
make sth difficult/easy/possible etc
▪ The use of computers has made it possible for more people to work from home.
make things worse/easier/difficult
▪ Measures to slow down traffic on the main street have actually made things worse.
much better/greater/easier etc
▪ Henry’s room is much bigger than mine.
▪ These shoes are much more comfortable.
nice and warm/clean/easy/quiet etc
▪ The house seemed nice and tidy.
sth is not an easy task sth is no easy task (= something is difficult)
▪ Recruiting experienced people is no easy task nowadays.
the hard/easy part
▪ Deciding what you're going to cook is the easy part.
the simple/easy answer
▪ There are a lot of problems and no simple answers.
within easy reach of (=close to)
▪ We live within easy reach of the shops.
within (easy) walking distance (of sth) (=near enough to be able to walk to)
▪ There are plenty of bars and restaurants within walking distance of the hotel.
within (easy) walking distance (=near enough to walk to easily)
▪ There are lots of restaurants within walking distance.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
 ADVERB
fairly
▪ Up to this stage it will have been fairly easy for them to break off their activities should the occasion demand it.
▪ It was a beautiful theory, and it was fairly easy to understand.
▪ If the ritual was completed, the adventurers still alive have it fairly easy.
▪ Fortunately, the elements are fairly easy to replace.
▪ Cultivation is apparently fairly easy and details of where to get the plants are available.
▪ They were fairly easy to move through and were cooler than surrounding areas.
▪ Fortunately, most are still fairly easy to spot, and usually catch out only new users, but they will improve.
▪ There were fan magazines that were fairly easy to deal with.
quite
▪ All paths and tracks are well defined and mostly signposted; route-finding quite easy.
▪ This was my favourite song as it was quite easy to sing and it had a stirring, catching rhythm.
▪ One of them, Rhuad Sgeir, was quite easy to identify.
▪ It's quite easy once you get the hang of it.
▪ To plate, look for the instructions in your manual, it is quite easy, once you are threaded up.
▪ So improving or updating an older model is quite easy.
▪ Because of the comparative thinness of the jigsaw blade, it is quite easy to steer it round quite tight curves.
relatively
▪ In fact, it's relatively easy, provided there is a market.
▪ A century ago, it was relatively easy to hide corruption.
▪ This distinction may be relatively easy to make in memory for situations encountered when driving.
▪ The United States has traditionally offered the poor relatively easy access to the middle class if they can find steady work.
▪ There was plenty of room on the course and it was relatively easy to lengthen it enough to test the professionals.
▪ Okra is relatively easy to grow given sufficient space.
▪ In the 1950s teacher training furnished a relatively easy route to the secure status of superannuated salary earner.
▪ The theory of semiconductor design is relatively easy to learn.
so
▪ This is not so easy to practise in the informal pool, for part of its charm is its tangled informality.
▪ It is not so easy to apply this reasoning to the case of General Electric or General Motors.
▪ Even so, it was never again to be so easy.
▪ It would be so easy to go soft on them.
▪ However, identifying a breach of the rule may not be so easy.
▪ Why is it so easy to spend your cash when it can take so long to earn?
▪ It was all so easy, and so worthwhile.
▪ She gloated inwardly at the memory. So easy!
too
▪ For the strong propaganda machinery it was almost too easy to transform what had once been marginal into the nearly official.
▪ It's too easy, as a divorced man living away from your children, to buy into self-pity.
▪ It is all too easy to do this, especially if we know no other ways of praying than our own.
▪ It was too easy an assumption.
▪ It's all been a bit too easy on the ear and eye.
▪ On the whole, her father had had a very easy life of it, too easy.
▪ And if playing is too easy, it might take all the fun out of it.
very
▪ Take careful note of the potential size - it is very easy to go wrong with these.
▪ The recipe is very easy to prepare, but it does take about 2 hours to cook.
▪ It's very easy to organise some investigative work by children on school meals provision.
▪ This is of course very easy since what the spreadsheet has stored in cells C and D is a time serial number.
▪ In the air, you will find all the modern machines very easy to fly but most are lighter on the controls.
▪ Comments ranged from tasteless, bland and bitter to very easy to drink.
▪ Breath Singers are usually very easy to speechread.
▪ It is visible with the naked eye, and its position close to Eta and Mu makes it very easy to locate.
NOUN
access
▪ Rocky terrain with relatively easy access is the shore to look for.
▪ That closeness has been all the greater because of the sea-routes that have made for easy access.
▪ For the most part sited high above the sea, it is climbable at all times and offers easy access.
▪ The trolley also passes several sprawling condominium complexes, giving thousands of people easy access to public transit.
▪ The sheltered housing is close to local amenities to allow residents easy access to shops and other facilities.
▪ There is a regular seminar programme, and easy access to professional bodies and institutions concerned with formal and non-formal education.
▪ Three out of five people in the Third World have no easy access to clean water.
▪ The Control Center provides a relatively easy access point to dBase.
answer
▪ Some materials still resist easy answers - gold is an example.
▪ Because the move to management requires transformation, though, no easy answers or quick fixes are provided.
▪ No easy answers came and there were many apparent paradoxes.
▪ I found no easy answer from within myself.
▪ Magona's reexamination of a highly contentious political event leaves no easy answers.
▪ So much for an easy answer.
▪ It's time to ask questions that don't have easy answers.
▪ But suddenly we find ourselves acknowledging that there are no easy answers to the dilemmas Christians face.
life
▪ His forefathers had built the mills, and it hadn't been a particularly easy life.
▪ It was not an easy life.
▪ I agree that it's not a particularly easy life for most people to support.
▪ From boyhood he disdained an easy life.
▪ Like Polonius, Amis passed on his secrets to an easy life.
▪ Nockerd Sockett had not had an easy life.
▪ I am all in favour of an easy life for horse and rider wherever possible.
matter
▪ Keeping track of attendance is no easy matter for schools.
▪ It is not an easy matter to quantify the economic role of government.
▪ The plaintiff's solicitor will have to go on affidavit about that, which is not an easy matter.
▪ Funding will depend on the sale of extraneous plots for other developments, not an easy matter in the current climate.
▪ Capital accumulation is a relatively easy matter for the self-employed but is almost impossible for the professional manager to achieve out of income.
▪ Judging the competition has taken quite some time and was no easy matter.
▪ It was an easy matter to buy my way on to the same flight.
▪ Capturing the image Photographs, however, are not such an easy matter.
money
▪ The easy money regime focused attention on monetary policy and contributed to the significance accorded to the money supply in later years.
▪ In discussing the easy money prescription we have chosen a fairly extreme version of it, in part to get students excited.
▪ Disadvantages: Some part-timers regard Koi dealing as a way of making easy money.
▪ People will tell you you can make easy money.
▪ The reason too much easy money and not enough dedication and genuine love for one's chosen work.
▪ Instead, he is expected to surrender one-third of the Championship and opt for some easy money.
▪ Owing to legal changes, young barristers can no longer earn easy money on undefended divorces, which are now done by solicitors.
▪ The opening years of the 1970s were a period of easy money.
option
▪ His refusal to take the easy option is admirable.
▪ In a situation of this sort ignorance is often the easy option.
▪ But their other argument is possibly more persuasive: it's that farm saving is not an easy option.
▪ It is, though, an easy option for simple Web pages.
▪ Well, he certainly achieved it but remember, winning championships is the easy option.
▪ Promising extra money, though welcome in itself, is the easy option.
▪ Trotting is very pleasant, but it's not an easy option.
▪ They have no dislike of getting their feet wet, while preferring to stay dry where the easy option exists.
part
▪ Getting on to Switchboard was the easy part.
▪ And that was the easy part.
▪ The easy part was the system itself.
▪ This is the easy part, proving difficult only for those with unsteady hands, poor vision or failure to comprehend.
▪ But knowing right from wrong is the easy part.
▪ The easy part is to say that he was bad, or to say how bad he was.
prey
▪ Like a wolf pack scenting easy prey, they dismounted and spread out.
▪ Men prowled the motel like packs of wolves searching out easy prey.
▪ More rarely, I watched them diving in the sea for sea urchins or other easy prey.
▪ We were barely moving through the water, an easy prey.
▪ The dams also render the animals easy prey for hunters and trap them when the water is drained for irrigation.
▪ Three groups are easy prey to the underclass's recruiting sergeant.
▪ It is easy prey - I've caught them myself.
▪ As a result, his party may look battered, easy prey for the Democrats.
reach
▪ Also within easy reach of many places of interest, including the new International Convention Centre.
▪ All are within easy reach of Gubbio which is among the best restored medieval towns in Umbria.
▪ A short climb from the tarn leads to the ridge wall, the summit then being within easy reach on the left.
▪ But the gannets of Bempton Cliffs are within easy reach of all.
▪ The latter were concentrated quite markedly in Stratford and Forest Gate within easy reach of the main railway line into the city.
ride
▪ Even if she manages to get through her first probationary year, life is not an easy ride for full members either.
▪ Sweeping views of the South Bay, incredible birdwatching, and an easy ride along a stream.
▪ They remind us that we are not called to an easy ride over the waves during our lifetime.
▪ Gazza makes his Lazio debut against his old club and his Tottenham pals aren't going to give him an easy ride.
▪ Holly's easy ride was over.
▪ It has not been an easy ride, however.
▪ Unlike the United States secretary of state, Colin Powell, last month, the president was given an exceptionally easy ride.
target
▪ But to the criminal she's was just an easy target.
▪ It was a natural and easy target for newspapers.
▪ Such an organization would have been an easy target for Labour's disciplinarians.
▪ That makes them easy targets for mining industry recruiters.
▪ You can see so little as you blunder on that you are an easy target for any animal seeking fresh meat.
▪ So we opt for cheap grace, and easy targets, instead.
▪ However, the uniformed, sixteen-legged crocodile was an easy target for ridicule.
▪ Most outsiders will point to coach Barry Switzer, who is an easy target.
task
▪ But it is no easy task.
▪ The library user who looks for books of art criticism is not necessarily going to have an easy task.
▪ It was not an easy task.
▪ Evaluating this set of foreign policies is no easy task.
▪ To forge peace and order into society is not an easy task of and for a people or a nation.
▪ Convincing shopkeepers and local firms that donating prizes is a very inexpensive form of advertising is usually a relatively easy task.
▪ In this brief look backwards, history has an easy task.
thing
▪ That's always a very easy thing to do on the periphery.
▪ This is not an easy thing to do creatively, especially while dealing with demographics.
▪ A fire would always be an easy thing from which a superhuman creature like the monster could escape.
▪ Screenwriting is a very easy thing for me to do.
▪ This is obviously not always an easy thing to do, especially if we are in the darkness of suffering.
▪ This is by no means an easy thing to accomplish; nothing of real esoteric value ever is easy to attain.
▪ It's not an easy thing to do...
▪ That's not an easy thing.
victory
▪ Haynes then steered the tourists to an easy victory with more than 11 overs to spare.
▪ Ford gratefully accepts, takes a sip and continues to watch as his team heads for an easy victory.
▪ The Ladies race produced another easy victory for Percival.
▪ The lopsided final score may suggest an easy victory.
▪ The Chargers dominated the Raiders on both sides of the line, walking away with a surprisingly easy victory.
▪ Left: new Honda V12 performed faultlessly for Senna to score easy victory.
▪ Still others cruised to easy victory, including 93-year-old Strom Thurmond, R-S.
way
▪ He was saying, I am going to kick a field goal; no sir, he took the easy way.
▪ But she wanted a quick, easy way to determine which states needed the money the most.
▪ This is an easy way of referencing for authors, but a bit of a nuisance for readers.
▪ College is simply an easy way for employers to identify workers with strong basic skills.
▪ Deependable Products now offer an easy way to remove and prevent induced voltages - the Nega-volt.
▪ But there are no easy ways of determining the actual role of women in decision making in the use of birth control.
▪ But these days, if it looks as if it's going to be nasty, I take the easy way out.
▪ Standing orders and direct debits - the easy way to pay gas, electricity and other bills and expenses.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a rough/easy ride
▪ Any member on a committee to which Karl Barth belonged had a rough ride.
▪ But history says Bill Clinton may be in for a rough ride.
▪ Even after the Renaissance and the rebirth of learning had reached these shores ears were still having a rough ride.
▪ He cheered Tory backbenchers, but they predicted that the Chancellor could also face a rough ride unless the plan works.
▪ Well, it's turned out not so badly, he thought, although it's been a rough ride.
a soft/easy touch
▪ And he knew I was a soft touch, that I did most of the housework so he could be free.
▪ Artisans needed more than just fertile imaginations and a soft touch with a trowel to bring their work to life.
▪ Cool for Cats at Stennis Head - a soft touch E15b.
▪ Leeds are a soft touch when it comes to transfers.
▪ Middlesbrough showed a resilience that emphasised they are no longer a soft touch on their travels.
▪ My client was a soft touch.
▪ Next to it goes a soft touch 6a, Cocoluche, which has an easily avoidable 6b section.
▪ Terry was such a soft touch.
all the better/easier/more etc
▪ He offsets Roberts' operatic evil with a performance that commands all the more notice for its minimalism.
▪ His job was made all the more easier by drivers who hadn't bothered to take measures to stop people like him.
▪ If there is some meat left on the bones, all the better.
▪ It makes it all the more opportune.
▪ Superb defence by Karpov, all the more praiseworthy in that he was now in desperate time trouble.
▪ The dispute was all the more bitter because a prize was at stake.
▪ The inadequacy and treachery of the old leaderships of the working class have made the need all the more imperative.
▪ Weather experts say it was a relatively dry winter which makes the water recovery all the more remarkable.
be a good/quick/easy etc lay
▪ I don't deny it was a good lay.
be easy meat
▪ If her own mind could play tricks like that, she'd be easy meat for any of those giant prawns.
▪ If we think they are easy meat we will end up with egg on our faces.
▪ Quakers were easy meat at home.
▪ Unprotected by a shell, they are easy meat for insect larvae and flatworms.
▪ With most of the control surfaces shot away, they were easy meat for a Messerschmitt.
easy option
▪ Instead of working to keep their marriages, more and more people are taking the easy option and getting divorced.
▪ Some people think that studying languages instead of sciences is a soft option.
▪ But their other argument is possibly more persuasive: it's that farm saving is not an easy option.
▪ His refusal to take the easy option is admirable.
▪ In a situation of this sort ignorance is often the easy option.
▪ It is, though, an easy option for simple Web pages.
▪ Promising extra money, though welcome in itself, is the easy option.
▪ They have no dislike of getting their feet wet, while preferring to stay dry where the easy option exists.
▪ Trotting is very pleasant, but it's not an easy option.
▪ Well, he certainly achieved it but remember, winning championships is the easy option.
easy prey
▪ It is easy prey - I've caught them myself.
▪ Like a wolf pack scenting easy prey, they dismounted and spread out.
▪ Men prowled the motel like packs of wolves searching out easy prey.
▪ More rarely, I watched them diving in the sea for sea urchins or other easy prey.
▪ The dams also render the animals easy prey for hunters and trap them when the water is drained for irrigation.
▪ Then, as the softies were driven extinct, Harrington followed them, having no easy prey left.
▪ Three groups are easy prey to the underclass's recruiting sergeant.
▪ We were barely moving through the water, an easy prey.
it's as easy as falling off a log
make life difficult/easier etc
▪ But this arbitrary division of the country has not made life easier for either the North or the South.
▪ Having to adopt the fast-track method made life difficult for all three.
▪ Jim was uninterested in learning the kind of ecclesial footwork that would have made life easier for himself and his parish.
▪ Latecomers, however, do make life difficult - and unnecessarily expensive.
▪ The lack of economic statistics has made life difficult for economists and money managers for the past few weeks.
▪ There's no greater pleasure than handing over money to a local supplier who helps make life easier.
▪ To make life easier in the future, will you be publishing an index?
▪ With the advent of electrics, journey times were to be halves, as well as making life easier for locomotive crews.
rest easy
▪ Craig Chalmers, however, can rest easy.
▪ He also seems to want to be the Nineties Coco Chanel, so street fashion bods can rest easy.
▪ He can rest easy on that matter.
▪ No side can rest easy with such a slender lead.
▪ Some local retailer would rest easy in his bed that night.
▪ Surely, the letter said with a surprising burst of bitterness, Eileen Ryan would rest easy in her grave at last.
▪ Wall Street and the bond markets can rest easy.
▪ When I have a shoal of feeding bream in the swim I can not rest easy.
sb can breathe easy/easily
sb can sleep easy
within (easy) reach of sth
▪ Also within easy reach of many places of interest, including the new International Convention Centre.
▪ It was so away from it all yet within easy reach of the city.
▪ None of the androids flew within reach of the weapon.
▪ That victory put him within reach of the top ten.
▪ The latter were concentrated quite markedly in Stratford and Forest Gate within easy reach of the main railway line into the city.
▪ The science-room windows were within easy reach of the school keeper's shammy.
▪ Weldon is within easy reach of major towns like Leicester, Peterborough and Northampton.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ All the instructions are in large print to make them easy to read.
▪ Being a teacher isn't easy.
▪ He doesn't find it easy to talk about his personal feelings.
▪ He has lived an easy life in college for the last few years.
▪ I think Paul's had a pretty easy life.
▪ It's an easy journey - we just drive to the station, then take the direct train to Paris.
▪ It is easy to see why she didn't marry him.
▪ Lawyers really have it easy -- lots of money for very little work.
▪ Mr. Taylor is an easy teacher.
▪ Ms. Morrell is a small woman with a soft voice and an easy smile.
▪ Susan's always found school work easy.
▪ The questions were really easy.
▪ There's no easy way to solve this problem.
▪ This is not an easy time to be traveling.
▪ Was it easy for you to find a job?
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As on Suilven, the ridge dips to an easy saddle and rises to an east top.
▪ It was easy to see that he was clever and well read, but he was also boring.
▪ Microsoft is a longer name, yet still easy to pronounce, and described the software product perfectly.
▪ The Bit Shot is also quiet, lightweight and easy to handle.
▪ The Merrimac laid off at easy point-blank range, discharging her broadsides alternately at the Cumberland and the Congress.
▪ This is of course very easy since what the spreadsheet has stored in cells C and D is a time serial number.
▪ With the use of oil as a transport fuel for cars, things are not so easy.
II. adverb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
VERB
come
▪ Fear comes easy: understanding is more difficult.
▪ Redford played a character where everything came easy.
▪ But my attitude to money is slightly easy come, easy go.
▪ Nothing has come easy for the 49ers this year, but the coaching decisions Sunday made the game unnecessarily difficult.
▪ Hands are not so easy come by for a slaver.
▪ Such pragmatism has not come easy to liberals.
▪ Laissez faire! Easy come, easy go!
▪ Again, academic success came easy, bud this time I was really interested.
go
▪ I stumbled across one shack, but was lucky this farmer was easy going.
▪ They tend to be more easy going and popular, and take more risks, but they can remain insecure and vulnerable.
▪ No easy come, easy go, in this house!
▪ He seemed to thrive under prison conditions, which caused the emperors to suspect their guards of going easy on the prisoner.
▪ But my attitude to money is slightly easy come, easy go.
▪ And go easy on the sugar, salt and alcohol.
▪ Tempting as the warm, crusty sourdough bread is, go easy.
▪ We went easy on Baker and gave him the benefit of the doubt.
rest
▪ No side can rest easy with such a slender lead.
▪ Wall Street and the bond markets can rest easy.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
(just) that little bit better/easier etc
▪ We have put together a few of the most popular itineraries to help make your choice that little bit easier.
a rough/easy ride
▪ Any member on a committee to which Karl Barth belonged had a rough ride.
▪ But history says Bill Clinton may be in for a rough ride.
▪ Even after the Renaissance and the rebirth of learning had reached these shores ears were still having a rough ride.
▪ He cheered Tory backbenchers, but they predicted that the Chancellor could also face a rough ride unless the plan works.
▪ Well, it's turned out not so badly, he thought, although it's been a rough ride.
a soft/easy touch
▪ And he knew I was a soft touch, that I did most of the housework so he could be free.
▪ Artisans needed more than just fertile imaginations and a soft touch with a trowel to bring their work to life.
▪ Cool for Cats at Stennis Head - a soft touch E15b.
▪ Leeds are a soft touch when it comes to transfers.
▪ Middlesbrough showed a resilience that emphasised they are no longer a soft touch on their travels.
▪ My client was a soft touch.
▪ Next to it goes a soft touch 6a, Cocoluche, which has an easily avoidable 6b section.
▪ Terry was such a soft touch.
all the better/easier/more etc
▪ He offsets Roberts' operatic evil with a performance that commands all the more notice for its minimalism.
▪ His job was made all the more easier by drivers who hadn't bothered to take measures to stop people like him.
▪ If there is some meat left on the bones, all the better.
▪ It makes it all the more opportune.
▪ Superb defence by Karpov, all the more praiseworthy in that he was now in desperate time trouble.
▪ The dispute was all the more bitter because a prize was at stake.
▪ The inadequacy and treachery of the old leaderships of the working class have made the need all the more imperative.
▪ Weather experts say it was a relatively dry winter which makes the water recovery all the more remarkable.
be a good/quick/easy etc lay
▪ I don't deny it was a good lay.
be easy meat
▪ If her own mind could play tricks like that, she'd be easy meat for any of those giant prawns.
▪ If we think they are easy meat we will end up with egg on our faces.
▪ Quakers were easy meat at home.
▪ Unprotected by a shell, they are easy meat for insect larvae and flatworms.
▪ With most of the control surfaces shot away, they were easy meat for a Messerschmitt.
easy option
▪ Instead of working to keep their marriages, more and more people are taking the easy option and getting divorced.
▪ Some people think that studying languages instead of sciences is a soft option.
▪ But their other argument is possibly more persuasive: it's that farm saving is not an easy option.
▪ His refusal to take the easy option is admirable.
▪ In a situation of this sort ignorance is often the easy option.
▪ It is, though, an easy option for simple Web pages.
▪ Promising extra money, though welcome in itself, is the easy option.
▪ They have no dislike of getting their feet wet, while preferring to stay dry where the easy option exists.
▪ Trotting is very pleasant, but it's not an easy option.
▪ Well, he certainly achieved it but remember, winning championships is the easy option.
easy prey
▪ It is easy prey - I've caught them myself.
▪ Like a wolf pack scenting easy prey, they dismounted and spread out.
▪ Men prowled the motel like packs of wolves searching out easy prey.
▪ More rarely, I watched them diving in the sea for sea urchins or other easy prey.
▪ The dams also render the animals easy prey for hunters and trap them when the water is drained for irrigation.
▪ Then, as the softies were driven extinct, Harrington followed them, having no easy prey left.
▪ Three groups are easy prey to the underclass's recruiting sergeant.
▪ We were barely moving through the water, an easy prey.
free and easy
▪ a free and easy lifestyle
▪ A free and easy smile, but lop-sided because her face was still puffy from Garty's beating.
▪ Cousin Noreen was arriving on Sunday and life wasn't going to be so free and easy after that.
▪ Gone was the free and easy time of three meals a day and as many hot drinks as we liked.
▪ In this free and easy style, I accustomed myself to the rhythms of school life.
▪ It was as if they were indeed from another world: a happy world, a free and easy world.
▪ Robyn remembered his free and easy hand as he had poured her wine.
▪ The time they shared became special now, where before they had been free and easy.
▪ Their relationship is not free and easy but at least Red is no longer looking daggers at her.
it's as easy as falling off a log
make life difficult/easier etc
▪ But this arbitrary division of the country has not made life easier for either the North or the South.
▪ Having to adopt the fast-track method made life difficult for all three.
▪ Jim was uninterested in learning the kind of ecclesial footwork that would have made life easier for himself and his parish.
▪ Latecomers, however, do make life difficult - and unnecessarily expensive.
▪ The lack of economic statistics has made life difficult for economists and money managers for the past few weeks.
▪ There's no greater pleasure than handing over money to a local supplier who helps make life easier.
▪ To make life easier in the future, will you be publishing an index?
▪ With the advent of electrics, journey times were to be halves, as well as making life easier for locomotive crews.
rest easy
▪ Craig Chalmers, however, can rest easy.
▪ He also seems to want to be the Nineties Coco Chanel, so street fashion bods can rest easy.
▪ He can rest easy on that matter.
▪ No side can rest easy with such a slender lead.
▪ Some local retailer would rest easy in his bed that night.
▪ Surely, the letter said with a surprising burst of bitterness, Eileen Ryan would rest easy in her grave at last.
▪ Wall Street and the bond markets can rest easy.
▪ When I have a shoal of feeding bream in the swim I can not rest easy.
sb can breathe easy/easily
sb can sleep easy
within (easy) reach of sth
▪ Also within easy reach of many places of interest, including the new International Convention Centre.
▪ It was so away from it all yet within easy reach of the city.
▪ None of the androids flew within reach of the weapon.
▪ That victory put him within reach of the top ten.
▪ The latter were concentrated quite markedly in Stratford and Forest Gate within easy reach of the main railway line into the city.
▪ The science-room windows were within easy reach of the school keeper's shammy.
▪ Weldon is within easy reach of major towns like Leicester, Peterborough and Northampton.
easy
I. eas‧y1 S1 W1 /ˈiːzi/ adjective (comparative easier, superlative easiest)
[Word Family: noun: ease, unease, easiness, uneasiness; adverb: easily, uneasily, easy; adjective: easy, uneasy; verb: ease]
[date : 1100-1200; Language : Old French; Origin : aisié, from aise; ⇨ ease1]
1. NOT DIFFICULT not difficult to do, and not needing much effort OPP difficult, hard:
▪ The test was easy.
▪ Finishing the task will not be easy.
▪ There must be an easier way to do that.
easy to do something
▪ It’s a great car, and very easy to drive.
▪ instructions that are easy to follow
▪ It would have been easy for the team to lose the game.
make it easier (to do something)
▪ The software makes it easier to download music.
▪ Having you here does make things a lot easier for me.
as easy as pie/ABC/falling off a log (=very easy)
▪ The station is within easy reach of (=close to) the town centre.
▪ The park is within easy walking distance (=close enough to walk to).
2. COMFORTABLE comfortable or relaxed, and without problems OPP hard:
▪ On the whole, Dad has had an easy life.
easy day/week etc
▪ She had a nice easy day at home.
▪ You can have an easy time of it now that the kids have all left home.
▪ Why don’t we make life easy for ourselves and finish it tomorrow?
3. NOT WORRIED not feeling worried or anxious OPP uneasy:
▪ We talk more openly when we feel easy and relaxed.
▪ I can leave the children with my mother with an easy mind.
4. FRIENDLY friendly and pleasant with other people:
▪ She is gentle and easy to be with.
5. EASILY ATTACKED able to be hunted or attacked without difficulty:
▪ The soldiers on the streets are an easy target for terrorists.
▪ Tourists are easy prey for thieves.
6. take the easy way out
to end a situation in a way that seems easy, but is not the best or most sensible way:
▪ I just took the easy way out and gave him some cash.
7. have an easy time (of it)
to have no problems or difficulties:
▪ She’s not been having an easy time of it financially.
8. easy money
money that you do not have to work hard to get:
▪ We can buy them for $10 and sell them for $25 – easy money.
9. easy on the eye/ear
pleasant to look at or listen to:
▪ Soft colours are easy on the eye.
10. it’s/that’s easy for you to say
spoken used when someone has given you some advice that would be difficult for you to follow
11. there are no easy answers
used when saying that it is difficult to find a good way of dealing with a problem
12. I’m easy
spoken used to say that you do not mind what choice is made:
▪ ‘What would you like to do now?’ ‘I don’t know, I’m easy.’
13. be (living) on easy street
especially American English informal to be in a situation in which you have plenty of money:
▪ If I get this new job, we’ll be living on easy street.
14. on easy terms
if you buy something on easy terms, you pay for it with several small payments instead of paying the whole amount at once:
▪ New settlers in the west could buy land on relatively easy terms.
15. eggs over easy
American English eggs cooked on a hot surface and turned over quickly before serving
16. woman/lady/girl of easy virtue
old-fashioned a woman who has sex with a lot of men
17. SEX informal someone, especially a woman, who is easy has a lot of sexual partners
⇨ ease, easily
• • •
THESAURUS
▪easy not difficult to do, and not needing much effort :
▪ an easy task
▪ The house was easy to find.
▪simple easy and not complicated – used about things such as instructions and explanations, or about machines and systems :
▪ The system is relatively simple to operate.
▪ a simple recipe for chocolate cake
▪straightforward easy to understand or do, and unlikely to cause you any problems :
▪ a straightforward explanation
▪ The calculation is fairly straightforward.
▪user-friendly easy to use – used especially about computers or written information about how to do something :
▪ Their website is very user-friendly.
▪ a user-friendly guide to owning a dog
▪undemanding easy because it does not take a lot of effort :
▪ It was an undemanding role for someone of his experience.
▪cushy /ˈkʊʃi/ informal a cushy job is easy to do and needs very little effort – often used when you are envious of the person who has it :
▪ It’s a pretty cushy job – all she has to do is drive a nice car around.
▪ a cushy number (=a very easy job)
▪mindless so easy that you can do it without thinking – used especially when it makes you feel bored :
▪ mindless tasks
▪painless without any difficulties or problems – used especially when you expected something to be much worse :
▪ Finding the carhire place at the airport was relatively painless.
▪ Thankfully, there's a wide selection of search tools to make the task relatively painless.
▪be plain sailing British English, be smooth sailing American English to be easy and with no problems that you have to deal with :
▪ Things should be plain sailing from now on.
informal phrases meaning very easy
▪be a piece of cake informal to be very easy to do, especially compared to doing something else :
▪ This test was a piece of cake compared to the last one.
▪be child’s play informal to be surprisingly easy, or much easier than something else which is very difficult or dangerous :
▪ Getting people’s credit card details is child’s play when you know how to do it.
▪ Climbing in England is child’s play compared to climbing in the Himalayas.
▪be a breeze informal (also be a doddle British English) to be very easy to do :
▪ The software is a doddle to use.
▪ The check-in process was a breeze.
▪it’s not rocket science informal used when saying that something is very easy to do or understand, and you do not need to be intelligent to do it :
▪ Making your PC run faster isn’t exactly rocket science.
II. easy2 S2 adverb
[Word Family: noun: ease, unease, easiness, uneasiness; adverb: easily, uneasily, easy; adjective: easy, uneasy; verb: ease]
1. take it easy
a) (also take things easy) to relax and not do very much:
▪ Take things easy for a few days and you should be all right.
b) spoken used to tell someone to become less upset or angry:
▪ Just take it easy and tell us what happened.
c) American English spoken used to say goodbye
2. go easy on/with something
to not use too much of something:
▪ Go easy on salty foods such as bacon.
3. go easy on somebody
to be more gentle and less strict or angry with someone:
▪ Go easy on Peter for a while – he’s having a hard time at school.
4. easier said than done
especially spoken used to say that something would be very difficult to do:
▪ Finding the perfect house was easier said than done.
5. rest/breathe easy
to stop worrying:
▪ We can rest easy now – we’ve got everything under control.
6. easy does it
spoken used to tell someone to be more careful and slow, especially in moving
7. get off easy
informal to escape severe punishment for something that you have done wrong:
▪ The rich could hire good lawyers and get off easy.
8. easy come, easy go
spoken used when something, especially money, was easily obtained and is quickly used or spent
9. stand easy
an order telling soldiers who are already standing at ease to relax more
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