take the cake
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
(US) To be especially good or outstanding. Alternatively (US) To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious.
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Đặc biệt tốt hoặc nổi bật, hoặc đặc biệt tồi tệ
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Maui was a little better — at least the interior decorator finished, even if it was in the worst possible taste, but the Seychelles took the cake.!.’
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Imported from Wikipedia “English-language idioms” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29), pending review.
Common questions
What does “take the cake” mean?
(US) To be especially good or outstanding. Alternatively (US) To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious.
Is “take the cake” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.