egg1

[eg] /ɛg/
noun
1.
the roundish reproductive body produced by the female of certain animals, as birds and most reptiles, consisting of an ovum and its envelope of albumen, jelly, membranes, egg case, or shell, according to species.
2.
such a body produced by a domestic bird, especially the hen.
3.
the contents of an egg or eggs:
raw egg; fried eggs.
4.
anything resembling a hen's egg.
5.
Also called egg cell. the female gamete; ovum.
6.
Informal. person:
He's a good egg.
7.
Slang. an aerial bomb.
verb (used with object)
8.
to prepare (food) by dipping in beaten egg.
Idioms
9.
egg on one's face, Informal. humiliation or embarrassment resulting from having said or done something foolish or unwise:
They were afraid to back the losing candidate and wind up with egg on their faces.
10.
lay an egg, Informal. to fail wretchedly, especially to be unsuccessful in front of an audience:
He laid an egg as the romantic hero.
11.
put all one's eggs in one basket, to venture all of something that one possesses in a single enterprise.
12.
walk on eggs, to walk or act very cautiously.
Origin
before 900; Middle English < Old Norse; replacing Middle English ey, Old English ǣg, German Ei egg; akin to Latin ōvum, Greek ōión egg
Related forms
eggless, adjective
eggy, adjective
Pronunciation note
Egg, like beg, leg, and other words where “short e” precedes a “hard g” sound, is pronounced with the vowel
[e] /ɛ/ (Show IPA) of bet and let, except in parts of New England and the South Midland and southern U.S., where these words are frequently said with
[-eyg] /-eɪg/ to rhyme with vague and plague, especially in the speech of the less educated. This raising of
[e] /ɛ/ to a higher vowel
[ey] /eɪ/ articulated with the upper surface of the tongue closer to the palate, also occurs before
[zh] /ʒ/ as in measure, pleasure, and treasure.
British Dictionary definitions for lay an egg

egg1

/ɛɡ/
noun
1.
the oval or round reproductive body laid by the females of birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and some other animals, consisting of a developing embryo, its food store, and sometimes jelly or albumen, all surrounded by an outer shell or membrane
2.
Also called egg cell. any female gamete; ovum
3.
the egg of the domestic hen used as food
4.
something resembling an egg, esp in shape or in being in an early stage of development
5.
(old-fashioned, informal) bad egg
  1. a bad person
  2. an exclamation of dismay
6.
(old-fashioned, informal) good egg
  1. a good person
  2. an exclamation of delight
7.
(slang, mainly US & Canadian) lay an egg
  1. to make a joke or give a performance, etc, that fails completely
  2. (of a joke, performance, etc) to fail completely; flop
8.
put all one's eggs in one basket, have all one's eggs in one basket, to stake everything on a single venture
9.
teach one's grandmother to suck eggs, to presume to teach someone something that he knows already
10.
(informal) with egg on one's face, made to look ridiculous
verb (transitive)
11.
to dip (food) in beaten egg before cooking
12.
(US, informal) to throw eggs at
Word Origin
C14: from Old Norse egg; related to Old English ǣg, Old High German ei

egg2

/ɛɡ/
verb
1.
(transitive) usually foll by on. to urge or incite, esp to daring or foolish acts
Word Origin
Old English eggian, from Old Norse eggja to urge; related to Old English ecgedge, Middle Low German eggen to harrow
Word Origin and History for lay an egg

egg

n.

mid-14c., from northern England dialect, from Old Norse egg, which vied with Middle English eye, eai (from Old English æg) until finally displacing it after 1500; both are from Proto-Germanic *ajja(m) (cf. Old Saxon, Middle Dutch, Dutch, Old High German, German ei, Gothic ada), probably from PIE *owyo-/*oyyo- "egg" (cf. Old Church Slavonic aja, Russian jajco, Breton ui, Welsh wy, Greek oon, Latin ovum); possibly derived from root *awi- "bird." Caxton (15c.) writes of a merchant (probably a north-country man) in a public house on the Thames who asked for eggs:

And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she understode hym not.
She did, however, recognize another customer's request for "eyren." Bad egg in the figurative sense is from 1855. To have egg on (one's) face "be made to look foolish" is attested by 1948.
[Young & Rubincam] realize full well that a crew can sometimes make or break a show. It can do little things to ruin a program or else, by giving it its best, can really get that all-important rating. They are mindful of an emcee of a variety show who already has been tabbed "old egg in your face" because the crew has managed to get him in such awkward positions on the TV screen. ["Billboard," March 5, 1949]
Eggs Benedict attested by 1898. The figure of speech represented in to have all (one's) eggs in one basket is attested by 1660s.

v.

c.1200, from Old Norse eggja "to goad on, incite," from egg "edge" (see edge (n.)). The unrelated verb meaning "to pelt with (rotten) eggs" is from 1857, from egg (n.). Related: Egged; egging.

lay an egg in Medicine

egg (ěg)
n.
The female sexual cell or gamete; an ovum.

lay an egg in Science
egg
  (ěg)   

  1. The larger, usually nonmotile female reproductive cell of most organisms that reproduce sexually. Eggs are haploid (they have half the number of chromosomes as the other cells in the organism's body). During fertilization, the nucleus of an egg cell fuses with the nucleus of a sperm cell (the male reproductive cell) to form a new diploid organism. In animals, eggs are spherical, covered by a membrane, and usually produced by the ovaries. In some simple aquatic animals, eggs are fertilized and develop outside the body. In some terrestrial animals, such as insects, reptiles and birds, eggs are fertilized inside the body but are incubated outside the body, protected by durable, waterproof membranes (shells) until the young hatch. In mammals, eggs produced in the ovaries are fertilized inside the body and (except in the cases of monotremes) develop in the reproductive tract until birth. The human female fetus possesses all of the eggs that she will ever have; every month after the onset of puberty, one of these eggs matures and is released from the ovary into the fallopian tube, where it is either fertilized or discarded during menstruation. In many plants (such as the bryophytes, ferns, and gymnosperms) eggs are produced by flasked-shaped structures known as archegonia. In gymnosperms and angiosperms, eggs are enclosed within ovules. In angiosperms, the ovules are enclosed within ovaries. See also oogenesis.

  2. In many animals, a structure consisting of this reproductive cell together with nutrients and often a protective covering. The embryo develops within this structure if the reproductive cell is fertilized. The egg is often laid outside the body, but the female of ovoviviparous species may keep it inside the body until after hatching.


lay an egg in Culture

lay an egg definition


To fail, or to have one's efforts fall flat: “Jim tried to tell a few jokes, but each time he forgot the punch line and laid an egg.”

egg definition


A female gamete.

Slang definitions & phrases for lay an egg

lay an egg

verb phrase

To fail; bomb, flop: The plan's going to lay an egg unless we give it a shot in the arm

[1929+; fr earlier British lay a duck's egg, ''make a score of zero'']


egg

noun
  1. A person: Evelyn's a good egg (1853+)
  2. Anything roughly egg-shaped, such as the head, a baseball, an aerial bomb, etc: bopped him on the egg/ reared back and chucked the old egg (1589+)
Related Terms

bad egg, duck-egg, fried egg, goose egg, hard-boiled egg, have egg on one's face, lay an egg, nest egg, suck eggs, walk on eggs, you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs

[first sense altered fr the mid-19th-century term bad egg, ''bad or rotten person'']


lay an egg in the Bible

(Heb. beytsah, "whiteness"). Eggs deserted (Isa. 10:14), of a bird (Deut. 22:6), an ostrich (Job 39:14), the cockatrice (Isa. 59:5). In Luke 11:12, an egg is contrasted with a scorpion, which is said to be very like an egg in its appearance, so much so as to be with difficulty at times distinguished from it. In Job 6:6 ("the white of an egg") the word for egg (hallamuth') occurs nowhere else. It has been translated "purslain" (R.V. marg.), and the whole phrase "purslain-broth", i.e., broth made of that herb, proverbial for its insipidity; and hence an insipid discourse. Job applies this expression to the speech of Eliphaz as being insipid and dull. But the common rendering, "the white of an egg", may be satisfactorily maintained.

Idioms and Phrases with lay an egg

lay an egg

Fail, especially in a public performance; make a humiliating error. For example, Carol really laid an egg last night when she forgot her lines, or, as Variety had it in October 1929: “Wall Street Lays An Egg.” The term originated in the late 1800s in vaudeville and was extended to nontheatrical failures in the early 1900s.

egg

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