the.com/bed of roses
A phrase for easy living, coined by someone who clearly never slept on actual roses.
means A situation that's comfortable, easy, and free of hardship or struggle.
from The phrase blooms from the simple contrast between roses as symbols of luxury and pleasure versus the thorns that would make an actual bed of them miserable. It shows up in English by the late 1500s, with poets and writers using 'bed of roses' to evoke a life of ease — often ironically, since anyone who's handled a rose stem knows the image is more fantasy than comfort. The phrase 'no bed of roses' later grew alongside it, making explicit the thorny joke that was there all along.
- origin
- From 1590s poetry about idyllic love, not furniture
- reality check
- Thorns make actual rose beds a terrible idea
- usage
- Almost always said negatively, as in not a
- bon jovi
- 1986 ballad made it a breakup-song staple