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

Today, Melinda Newman — Billboard‘s executive editor, West Coast and Nashville, and head of our country coverage — joins host Andrew Unterberger to relive the relatively smooth sailing of Wallen’s 2025, which ended with him as big and as central to popular music as ever before. —Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 21 Jan. 2026

Trifecta control of state government by his party hasn’t resulted in automatic smooth sailing for the governor. —Nick Coltrain, Denver Post, 15 Jan. 2026

As InStyle previously reported, Penny Junor’s biography The Duchess describes scenes of discomfort and all-but-smooth sailing. —Bailey Bujnosek, InStyle, 12 Jan. 2026

Rub a dry bar of soap along the teeth, and voilà—smooth sailing. —Melissa Locker, Southern Living, 29 Dec. 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