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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," is an old and true proverb.

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

"Easy come, easy go," he commented philosophically and, lighting his pipe from one of the sticks of burning punk placed at intervals along the bar, he went out.

From Port O' Gold A History-Romance of the San Francisco Argonauts by Stellman, Louis J. (Louis John)

"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 Spencer, Herbert

Easy come, easy go, that was the word.

From Desert Dust by Shepherd, J. Clinton

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

From Modern Economic Problems Economics Volume II by Fetter, Frank Albert

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

Besides, with them everything was easy come, easy go.

From The Lone Star Ranger, a romance of the border by Grey, Zane