egg

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A rounded object laid by a bird, especially a hen, used as food.

   I had two boiled eggs for breakfast.

2. 2
   noun

   A rounded object laid by birds, insects, and reptiles that a young animal grows inside.

   The bird laid three eggs in the nest.

3. 3
   noun

   The female cell in animals from which a baby can grow.

   The egg is fertilized by the sperm.

4. 4
   verb

   To throw eggs at someone or something.

   The angry crowd egged the politician's car.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Egg came into Middle English from Old Norse egg, gradually replacing Old English ey or eye, whose plural was eyren. The verb in egg someone on has a separate Old Norse source, eggja “to incite.”

From Middle English eggen (“to urge on; to entice, incite, lure, tempt; to encourage, exhort, stimulate; (reflexive) to bestir (oneself); to challenge, taunt; to enrage, irritate”), from Old English eggian (“to egg, excite”), from Old Norse eggja (“to incite, egg on”), from egg (“an edge”), from Proto-Germanic *agjō (“a corner; an edge”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”). Cognates * Danish ægge, egge (“to incite, egg on; to excite, rouse”) * Swedish egga (“to excite, egg on”) * Faroese eggja (“to incite, egg on; to sharpen”) * Icelandic eggja (“to incite, egg on”) * Old Eng…

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