What does "egg" mean?
An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, housing the embryo within a membrane or shell during its development.
Egg
/ɛɡ/ name, noun, verb, slang
name, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, housing the embryo within a membrane or shell during its development.
- Grammar: egg is listed as name, noun, verb, slang.
- Nearest alternatives: abet, albumen, anlage, ball.
- Useful contrasts: discourage, dissuade, milt.
- Usage evidence: It's so hot that you could cook an egg on the hood of a car.
How to use "egg"
- Start with the primary definition, then check the part of speech before placing the word in a sentence.
- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "egg" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
- Does the word fit the sentence's grammar?
- Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
- Would a simpler synonym be clearer for the reader?
- Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?
Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "egg" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Before you rely on this definition
Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "egg" as the right word for your sentence.
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Compare nearby meanings
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Definition decision workflow
1. Identify the role
Check whether "egg" is acting as name, noun, verb, slang in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.
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3. Confirm with context
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Final meaning check
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Definitions
Noun
- 1 An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, housing the embryo within a membrane or shell during its development. countable, uncountable
"The Eſtrich (whoſe fethers are fayrer thẽ yᵉ wynges of the ſparow hauke) whẽ he hath layd his egges vpon the grounde, he bredeth them in the duſt, and forgetteth them: ſo that they might be troden with feete, or broken with ſomme wilde beaſt."
- 2 Initialism of electroglottography. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism, uncountable
- 3 animal reproductive body consisting of an ovum or embryo together with nutritive and protective envelopes; especially the thin-shelled reproductive body laid by e.g. female birds wordnet
- 4 An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, housing the embryo within a membrane or shell during its development.; The edible egg (sense 1.1) of a domestic fowl such as a duck, goose, or, especially, a chicken; (uncountable) the contents of such an egg or eggs used as food. countable, specifically
"We made a big omelette with three eggs for breakfast."
- 5 one of the two male reproductive glands that produce spermatozoa and secrete androgens wordnet
Show 18 more definitions
- 6 An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, housing the embryo within a membrane or shell during its development.; A food item shaped to resemble an egg (sense 1.1.1), such as a chocolate egg. broadly, countable
- 7 oval reproductive body of a fowl (especially a hen) used as food wordnet
- 8 Synonym of ovum (“the female gamete of an animal”); an egg cell. also, countable, uncountable
"In the Fall into the division of labor, [Claude] Lévi-Strauss sees the great hunters trading women to create the exogamous bonds of one hunting band with another. The egg is, but the sperm does. The tiny sperm may be furious in its activity, but its highway to the egg is paved by the alkaline trail set down by the Great Mother."
- 9 A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1). countable
"His ſtomacke vvas queaſie (for comming there Coacht) / The jogging had caus’d ſome crudities riſe; / To help it he call’d for a Puritan poacht, / That uſed to turne up the egg’s of his eyes."
- 10 A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1).; A swelling on one's head, usually large or noticeable, resulting from an injury. countable, uncountable
- 11 A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1).; Chiefly in egg and dart: an ornamental oval moulding alternating in a row with dart or triangular shapes. countable, uncountable
- 12 A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1).; A score of zero; specifically (cricket), a batter's failure to score; a duck egg or duck's egg. countable, uncountable
- 13 A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1).; A bomb or mine. countable, dated, uncountable
- 14 A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1).; A would-be spark, especially one created by an overweight spaceship and that leads to a pattern's destruction. countable, uncountable
- 15 Senses relating to people.; A person; a fellow. countable, dated, figuratively, informal, uncountable
"a bad egg a good egg a tough egg Cheerio, old egg!"
- 16 Senses relating to people.; A white person considered to be overly infatuated with East Asia. countable, derogatory, ethnic, figuratively, rare, slur, uncountable
- 17 Senses relating to people.; A user of the microblogging service Twitter identified by the default avatar (historically an image of an egg (sense 1.1.1)) rather than a custom image; hence, a newbie or noob. Internet, countable, dated, derogatory, figuratively, uncountable
- 18 Senses relating to people.; A person regarded as having not yet realized they are transgender, who has not yet come out as transgender, or who is in the early stages of transitioning. countable, figuratively, uncountable
"That fits, though, she thought. Wear the same outfit day after day, your brain gets numb to how it looks or feels—Wendy shut the album. No. […] She hated analyzing the whys of [not-out] trans girls. She had always hated it, and she hated how easy it had become; the bottomless hole of egg mode."
- 19 Senses relating to people.; A person regarded as having not yet realized they are transgender, who has not yet come out as transgender, or who is in the early stages of transitioning.; One's lack of awareness that one is transgender. broadly, countable, figuratively, uncountable
"to crack someone's egg"
- 20 Senses relating to people.; A foolish or obnoxious person. New-Zealand, countable, derogatory, figuratively, uncountable
"Shut up, you egg!"
- 21 Senses relating to people.; A young person. countable, derogatory, figuratively, obsolete, uncountable
"VVhat you Egge? / Yong fry of Treachery?"
- 22 Something regarded as containing a (usually bad) thing at an early stage. archaic, countable, figuratively, uncountable
"[S]oe Power of Warre / From the firſt Egge of Libertie, out-Creepes / A fatall Serpent; […]"
- 23 One of the blocks of data injected into a program's address space for use by certain forms of shellcode, such as "omelettes". countable, figuratively, uncountable
"This approach would be altered for an optimal omelette based exploit. One would spray the heap with the omelette code solely, then load a single copy of the additional shellcode eggs into memory outside the target region for the spray."
Verb
- 1 To throw (especially rotten) eggs (noun sense 1.1.1) at (someone or something). transitive
"The angry demonstrators egged the riot police."
- 2 To encourage, incite, or urge (someone). transitive
"[Y]it haue vvee one thing in our ſelues and of our ſelues, (euen originall ſinne, concupiſcence or luſt) vvhich neuer ceaſeth too egge vs and allure vs from God, and too ſtaine vs vvith all kinde of vnclennes: […]"
- 3 coat with beaten egg wordnet
- 4 To inadvertently or intentionally distort (the circular cross-section of something, such as tube) to an elliptical or oval shape. transitive
"After I cut the tubing, I found that I had slightly egged it in the vise."
- 5 throw eggs at wordnet
Show 3 more definitions
- 6 To coat (a food ingredient) with or dip (a food ingredient) in beaten egg (noun sense 1.1.1) during the process of preparing a dish. transitive
""Jemima, Jemima!—ve'll ha'e the viting biled instead of fried." "Ca'n't, marm," replied Jemima, "they be all hegged and crumbed, with their tails in their mouths.""
- 7 To collect the eggs (noun sense 1.1) of wild birds. intransitive
- 8 To conceive a child, especially recklessly. England, dialectal, intransitive, vulgar
"I was out with my girlfriend in Birmingham, when some colorful local told us not to egg."
Proper Noun
- 1 A surname.
- 2 A Koenigsegg car. informal
- 3 The character Solas from the Dragon Age franchise (referring to his baldness). humorous
"Heh, i don't think she was that cunning to begin with, but romancing the Egg has rubbed off on her ;D."
- 4 A market town in Bregenz district, Vorarlberg, Austria.
- 5 A municipality in Uster district, Zürich canton, Switzerland.
Antonyms
Example
"It's so hot that you could cook an egg on the hood of a car."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "egg"?
Common synonyms include: abet, albumen, anlage, ball, ballock, boiled eggs.
How do you use "egg" in a sentence?
It's so hot that you could cook an egg on the hood of a car.
How do you pronounce "egg"?
Pronounced /ɛɡ/.
Etymology
Etymology 1
The noun is derived from Middle English eg, egg, egge (“egg of a domestic or wild fowl; egg of a snake”) [and other forms] (originally Northern England and Northeast Midlands), from Old Norse egg (“egg”), from Proto-Germanic *ajją (“egg”) (by Holtzmann’s law), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ōwyóm (“egg”), probably from *h₂éwis (“bird”), from *h₂ew- (“to consume”). Doublet of huevo, oeuf, and ovum. Cognates Cognate with North Frisian ai (“egg”), Saterland Frisian Oai (“egg”), West Frisian aai, aei (“egg”), Bavarian Oa (“egg”), Dutch ei (“egg”), German Ei (“egg”), German Low German Ai, Ägg (“egg”), Limburgish ei, Éï (“egg”), Luxembourgish Ee (“egg”), Mòcheno oi (“egg”), Vilamovian e (“egg”), Yiddish איי (ey, “egg”), Danish æg (“egg”), Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk egg (“egg”), Swedish ägg (“egg”), Crimean Gothic ada (“egg”); also Breton vi (“egg”), Cornish oy (“egg”), Welsh wy (“egg”), Latin ōvum (“egg”), Greek αβγό (avgó), αυγό (avgó, “egg”), Albanian vo (“egg”), Belarusian and Russian яйцо́ (jajcó, “egg”), Bulgarian яйце́ (jajcé, “egg”), Czech vejce (“egg”), Macedonian јајце (jajce, “egg”), Polish jajo (“egg”), Serbo-Croatian ја́јце, jájce (“egg”), Slovak vajce (“egg”), Slovene jájce (“egg”), Ukrainian яйце́ (jajcé, “egg”), Ossetian айк (ajk), айкӕ (ajkæ, “egg”), Armenian ձու (ju, “egg”), Northern Kurdish hêk (“egg”), Southern Kurdish خا (xa, “egg”), Zazaki hak (“egg”), Pashto هګۍ (hagë́y), ويه (wë́ya, “egg”), Persian خاگ (xâg), خایه (xâye, “egg”). The native English ey [and other forms] (plural eyren) (obsolete), from Old English ǣġ, is also derived from Proto-Germanic *ajją. It survived into at least c. 16th century before being fully displaced by egg. The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology 2
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 English ġeeġġian (“to incite, egg on”) * Old Frisian eggia (“to fence”) * Middle Low German eggen (“to sharpen”) * Old High German ungiekkōt (“unworked, unformed”) * Middle High German ecken (“to sharpen”), German ecken (archaic) Compare typologically another cognate: Russian поощря́ть (pooščrjátʹ), akin to Russian о́стрый (óstryj), ultimately from the same PIE root. Also compare typologically noncognate: Bulgarian потиквам (potikvam), Czech nabádat (“urge, exhort”), Russian подстрека́ть (podstrekátʹ).