Etymology Journal · N
Now we're cooking with gas
Meaning
- This means you are finally making progress or moving at a productive pace. It suggests that you have overcome initial hurdles and are now hitting your stride.
Energetic, enthusiastic
Used in a sentence
- Once we organized the files, we started cooking with gas and finished in an hour.
- The project was slow at first, but now we are cooking with gas.
- We just hired two new assistants, so now we are cooking with gas.
The backstory
This term stems from advertising campaigns in the 1930s and 40s promoting gas stoves over electric ones. Gas was marketed as faster, cleaner, and more efficient for cooking.
Heard in
Nationwide
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