egghead

[eg-hed] /ˈɛgˌhɛd/
noun, Informal: Often Disparaging.
1.
an intellectual.
Origin
1915-20; egg1 + head
Examples from the web for egghead
  • And a benison for the tabloid press: the egghead and the bombshell.
  • Paint or draw faces on eggheads set egghead on mouth of jar for drainage.
  • It had been hatched in secret by an egghead team that knew a lot about policy details but had no grasp of political reality.
British Dictionary definitions for egghead

egghead

/ˈɛɡˌhɛd/
noun
1.
(informal) an intellectual; highbrow
Word Origin and History for egghead
n.

1907, "bald person," from egg (n.) + head (n.). Sense of "intellectual" is attested from 1918, among Chicago newspapermen; popularized by U.S. syndicated columnist Stewart Alsop in 1952 in reference to Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign.

Adlai Stevenson once told what it was like to be the rare intellectual in politics. "Via ovicapitum dura est," he said, the way of the egghead is hard. [New York Times, Oct. 28, 1982]

Slang definitions & phrases for egghead

egghead

noun
  1. A bald man (1950s+)
  2. An intellectual; thinker; double dome •Revived in the 1950s to designate the followers of Adlai Stevenson: An egghead is ''one who calls Marilyn Monroe Mrs Arthur Miller'' (1907+)

[second sense presumably fr the putative high, domed, egg-shaped heads of such persons; the term was used in a letter of Carl Sandburg about 1918]