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• Easy come, easy go
  Easy come, easy go

  Things easily acquired may be lost just as easily.
• easy come, easy go
  easy come, easy go

  A phrase suggesting lack of concern over how things turn out, and particularly over money: “She never took things very seriously; ‘easy come, easy go’ was her motto.”

Easy come, easy go

¹ Cultural  

1. Things easily acquired may be lost just as easily.

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easy come, easy go ² Cultural  

1. A phrase suggesting lack of concern over how things turn out, and particularly over money: “She never took things very seriously; ‘easy come, easy go’ was her motto.”

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easy come, easy go Idioms  

1. Readily won and readily lost, as in Easy come, easy go—that's how it is for Mark when he plays the stock market. This phrase states a truth known since ancient times and expressed in numerous proverbs with slightly different wording (lightly come, lightly go; quickly come, quickly go). The adverb easy was substituted in the early 1800s.

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This saying is often used after something has been lost.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Easy come, easy go easy come, easy go

"Easy come, easy go in Benton," said the gambler, with a smile.

From The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey

"Easy come easy go," is a saying as applicable to knowledge as to wealth.

From Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects Everyman's Library by Herbert Spencer

Easy come, easy go, that was the word.

From Desert Dust by J. Clinton Shepherd

"Easy come, easy go," is an old and true proverb.

From Art of Money Getting Or, Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum

Easy come, easy go, is the rule of gamblers.

From Modern Economic Problems Economics Volume II by Frank Albert Fetter

Those requirements changed the meaning of time in airports, forcing travelers to cushion their trips with buffers that turned airports from easy come, easy go public places to highly secured obstacle courses.

From Slate ● Jul. 10, 2025

He sings famous lyrics including "easy come, easy go, little high, little low", and "any way the wind blows".

From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2022

“Bohemian Rhapsody” carried me from high school to adulthood, easy come, easy go.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 21, 2019

In the digital world, easy come, easy go.

From The Guardian ● May 19, 2013

"I think she was mighty lucky to git it to pay the interest with, but she's probably like all the Randalls; it was easy come, easy go, with them."

From Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin