smooth sailing

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

A situation or process that is easy and without problems

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

tình huống hoặc quá trình dễ dàng và không có vấn đề

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: traveling by boat on calm water
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

After the initial hurdles, it was smooth sailing for the new business

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Equivalents & related

Common questions

What does “smooth sailing” mean?

A situation or process that is easy and without problems Literally: traveling by boat on calm water

Is “smooth sailing” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

What is the closest equivalent?

“lời nói là bạc, im lặng là vàng” (Tiếng Việt) — near equivalent.