smooth sailing

idiomatic phrase

: easy progress without impediment or difficulty

After the mix-up was rectified, it was smooth sailing again.

—Mike Brown

He just kept talking and talking his nonstop sunny talk about what a great summer we were going to have and that he had tons of plans and that we would get caught up as father and son and soon all our rough past would be behind us and we would have nothing but smooth sailing for our future.

—Jack Ganto

Examples of smooth sailing in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

So the first three weeks of Jim and Chris Guld’s new life traveling the world aboard the Villa Vie Odyssey has been smooth sailing, the couple said during a recent video call with the South Florida Sun Sentinel. —Ron Hurtibise, Sun Sentinel, 14 May 2025

Recently Trump nominated Bowman as the Fed’s Vice Chair for Supervision, and the nomination hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. —John Tamny, Forbes.com, 14 May 2025

The Wednesday meeting wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. —Elliott Wenzler, Denver Post, 23 Apr. 2025

But since Bamford was selected to start for England against Andorra, the story has been anything other than smooth sailing. —Beren Cross, New York Times, 11 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1824, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for smooth sailing

• assailing
• availing
• bewailing
• blackmailing
• curtailing
• derailing
• descaling
• detailing
• dovetailing
• entailing
• exhaling
• impaling