icing on the cake
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.45 in modern English
26
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
3
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A thing which intensifies the appreciation of something already good, or (ironic) the regretting of something already bad.
Example Sentences
- "We went out for dinner and dancing and the icing on the cake was when my boyfriend proposed to me as we danced."
- "I was having a really bad day at work, but the icing on the cake was getting soaked by a car passing through a puddle."
- "With such advantages as these, the superior thermal efficiency of the diesel becomes no more than the icing on the cake."
- "“I'm happy right now. I don't need to test-drive a bunch of lemons to get me there. But happily ever after? That's a trip worth taking. The pièce de résistance. The crème de la crème. The—” “The icing on the cake,” Dana said. Michelle raised her glass in a toast. “Exactly.”"
- "The London School of Economics’ local government pundit, Tony Travers, has been totting up the capital’s groaning portfolio of infrastructure projects and the support given to them by the nation’s taxpayers. They include the new Elizabeth line (£14.8bn), Crossrail Two (£27bn), a possible new Heathrow (£25bn), the HS2 link in west London (£6bn), the Thames Tideway tunnel, of questionable necessity (£4.2bn), and such icings on the cake as an Olympic legacy culture park, a garden bridge for Joanna Lumley and a concert hall for Simon Rattle."
- "Lewis Hamilton is eyeing a hat-trick after victories at Silverstone in the last two years – he’d become the first to do the British GP treble, all on this historically important track, and he could even leapfrog his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg in the overall standings which would be the sweetest of icings on the cake at his home circuit."