egg – English noun declension

English noun forms of egg

Noun: egg
Singularegg
Pluraleggs

Sample Sentences

  • 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. [1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble, […] (Coverdale Bible), [Cologne or Marburg]: [Eucharius Cervicornus and Johannes Soter?], →OCLC, Job xxxix:[13–15], folio xi, recto, column 2:]
  • [T]hinke him as a Serpents egge, / VVhich hatch'd, vvould as his kinde grovv mischieuous; / And kill him in the ſhell. [1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], page 114, column 1:]
  • An egg properly is that, out of a part vvhereof a living creature is produced, and the reſidue is meat for it, improperly that is an egg out of the vvhole vvhereof, a living creature is bred, as the eggs of Spiders, Ants, Flies. [1657, Samuel Purchas, “Of the Generation of Bees”, in A Theatre of Politicall Flying-Insects. […], London: […] R. I. for Thomas Parkhurst, […], →OCLC, pages 47–48:]
  • [T]here is one claſs of quadrupeds that ſeems entirely left to chance, […] Theſe are the quadrupeds that are brought forth from the egg, ſuch as the lizard, the tortoiſe, and the crocodile. […] [T]he numerous brood of eggs are, vvithout farther ſolicitude, buried in the vvarm ſands of the ſhore, and the heat of the ſun alone is left to bring them to perfection. [1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of Quadrupeds in General, Compared to Man”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume II, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], →OCLC, pages 311–312:]
  • The egg is, as we have said, a kind of exposed uterus, and place in which the embryo is fashioned: for it performs the office of the uterus and enfolds the chick until the due time of its exclusion arrive, when the creature is born perfect. [1847, William Harvey, “Anatomical Exercises on the Generation of Animals; to which are Added, Essays on Parturition; on the Membranes, and Fluids of the Uterus; and on Conception. [On Animal Generation. Exercise the Twenty-third: Of the Exclusion of the Chick, or the Birth from the Egg.]”, in Robert Willis, transl., The Works of William Harvey, M.D., London: […] Sydenham Society, →OCLC, page 264:]
  • We made a big omelette with three eggs for breakfast.
  • I should determine the minimal amount of egg required to make good mayonnaise.
  • The farmer offered me some fresh eggs, but I told him I was allergic to egg.
  • There after the images and reliques were orderly disposed, the great Priest compassed about with divers pictures according to the fashion of the Ægyptians, did dedicate and consecrate with certaine prayers a fair ship made very cunningly, and purified the same with a torch, an egge, and sulphur; […] [1566, Apuleius, “The Eleventh Booke”, in William Adlington, transl., The Golden Ass of Apuleius Translated out of Latin […], London: David Nutt […], published 1893, →OCLC, page 239:]
  • [T]hey are vp already, and cal for Egges and butter, they vvil avvay preſently. [c. 1597 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The History of Henrie the Fourth; […], quarto edition, London: […] P[eter] S[hort] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1598, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:]
  • I was 5 moneth in France before I saw a boyled or roasted egge. [1665–1667, John Lauder; Lord Fountainhall, “Journal in France 1665–1667”, in Donald Crawford, editor, Journals of Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, with His Observations on Public Affairs and Other Memoranda 1665–1676 […] (Publications of the Scottish History Society; XXXVI), Edinburgh: […] University Press by T[homas] and A[rchibald] Constable for the Scottish History Society, published May 1900, →OCLC, page 52:]
  • Eggs are perhaps the higheſt, moſt nouriſhing and exalted of all animal Food, and moſt indigeſtible, becauſe no body can take and digeſt the ſame Quantity of them as of other Food. [1732, John Arbuthnot, “Practical Rules of Diet in the Various Constitutions and Diseases of Human Bodies. Chapter I. Of the Different Qualities and Effects of Alimentary Substances. 4. Anti-acid, or Contrary to Acidity or Sourness.”, in An Essay Concerning the Nature of Aliments, and the Choice of Them, According to the Different Constitutions of Human Bodies. […], 2nd edition, London: […] J[acob] Tonson […], →OCLC, page 255:]
  • A round, black, shining face is hers, so glossy as to suggest the idea that she might have washed over with white of eggs, like one of her own tea rusks. [1851 June – 1852 April, Harriet Beecher Stowe, “An Evening in Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, volume I, Boston, Mass.: John P[unchard] Jewett & Company; Cleveland, Oh.: Jewett, Proctor & Worthington, published 20 March 1852, →OCLC, page 39:]
  • 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. [1981, William Irwin Thompson, “Hominization”, in The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture (A Lindisfarne Series Book), New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, part 2 (The Transformations of Prehistory), page 80:]
  • Although they serve the same function across the plant, animal and fungal kingdoms, sperm and eggs vary wildly in their structure and biochemistry, even among closely related species. […] Many genes that determine sperm and egg structure and biochemistry are rapidly evolving, constantly changing the chemical environment necessary for the sperm to bind to the egg. [2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, New Haven, Conn.: Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2013, abstract, page 210:]
  • 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. [1621 August 13 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Ben Jonson, “The Masque of the Gypsies”, in Q. Horatius Flaccus: His Art of Poetry. […], London: […] J[ohn] Okes, for John Benson […], published 1640, →OCLC, page 84:]
  • There vvas taken a great Glaſs-bubble, vvith a long neck; (ſuch as Chymiſts are vvont to call a Philoſophical Egg) vvhich being fill'd vvith common VVater till the Liquor reach'd about a ſpan above the bubble, and a piece of Paper being there paſted on, vvas put unſtop'd into the Receiver, […] [1659 December 30 (date written), Robert Boyle, “[Experiment 20]”, in New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air, and Its Effects […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] H[enry] Hall, printer to the University, for Tho[mas] Robinson, published 1660, →OCLC, page 144:]
  • But Olga continued to work through her large bucket of balls. Ninety percent of them came to rest in exactly the same spot—dead center, between 150 and 175 yards. So tightly bunched were her balls out there it looked like someone had overturned a bucket of eggs. [2014 January 14, Bruce Grierson, “12: Shadows”, in What Makes Olga Run: The Mystery of the 90-Something Track Star and What She Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Happier Lives, Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 222:]
  • a bad egg    a good egg    a tough egg    Cheerio, old egg!
  • 'Good egg!' quoth Moorshed, and brought his hand down on the wide shoulders with the smack of a beaver's tail. [1903, Rudyard Kipling, “‘Their Lawful Occasions’—Part II”, in Traffics and Discoveries, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1904, →OCLC, page 138:]
  • Walter. The woman we passed as we came in just now. Is it his wife?
  • Cokeson. No, no relation. [Restraining what in jollier circumstances would have been a wink] A married person, though. […]
  • James. A real bad egg. [1910 February, John Galsworthy, Justice: A Tragedy in Four Acts, London: Duckworth and Co. […], published March 1910, →OCLC, Act I, page 15:]
  • "She isn't going to sue me for breach of promise?"
  • "She never had any intention of doing so."
  • The Honorable Freddie sank back on the pillows.
  • "Good egg!" he said with fervor. He beamed happily. "This," he observed, "is a bit of all right." [1915 September 3, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, chapter XI, in Something New, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC, page 326:]
  • They tell me at Timothy's […] that Dartie has gone off at last. That'll be a relief to your father. He was a rotten egg. [1920, John Galsworthy, “On Forsyte ’Change”, in In Chancery (The Forsyte Saga; 2), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, part I, page 100:]
  • Some big, hard-boiled egg meets up with a pretty face, and bingo! He cracks up and melts. [1932, Edgar Wallace, Merian C[aldwell] Cooper, novelization by Delos W[heeler] Lovelace, chapter 4, in King Kong, trade softcover edition, Nevada City, Calif.: Underwood Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 29:]
  • "She's a tough egg."
  • "She must be, if she slung your brother Joe out." [1937 July 24 – September 11, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter I, in Summer Moonshine, 1st UK edition, London: Herbert Jenkins […], published 1938, →OCLC, page 18:]
  • Up close he looked like a pretty tough egg. His hair was bristling up in the back in spite of what smelled like a whole bottle of Wildroot Creme Oil and he had the flat, oddly shiny eyes that some deep-sea fish have. [1980, Stephen King, “The Wedding Gig”, in Skeleton Crew (A Signet Book), New York, N.Y.: New American Library, published June 1986, →ISBN, page 259:]
  • Jonathan Lowrie. Royalist. Philanthropist. Classical scholar. And all around excellent egg. [2000 February 5, Douglas Watkinson et al., “Beyond the Grave”, in Midsomer Murders:]
  • 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. [2018, Casey Plett, edited by Susan Safyan, Little Fish, Vancouver, B.C.: Arsenal Pulp Press, →ISBN, page 24:]
  • So I remember being told, in the very early part of my transition, that I had been, until now, an egg, and—as powerfully rooted in a belief in latency as I found myself[.] [2020, Grace Lavery, “Egg Theory's Early Style”, in Transgender Studies Quarterly, page 384:]
  • to crack someone's egg
  • Shut up, you egg!
  • VVhat you Egge? / Yong fry of Treachery? [c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 145, column 2:]
  • [S]oe Power of Warre / From the firſt Egge of Libertie, out-Creepes / A fatall Serpent; […] [a. 1658 (date written), George Daniel, “Trinarchodia. The Raigne of Henry the Fourth.”, in Alexander B[alloch] Grosart, editor, The Poems of George Daniel, Esq. of Beswick, Yorkshire. (1616–1657) from the Original MSS. in the British Museum: Hitherto Unprinted. […], volume IV, Boston, Lincolnshire: […] [Robert Roberts] for private circulation only, published 1878, →OCLC, stanza 348, page 88:]
  • In ſhort, the Rebellion had been Cruſh'd in the Egg; and One Seaſonable Act of Rigour, had Sav'd the King, the Monarchy, the Church, and the Three Kingdoms. [1683 June 5 (Gregorian calendar), Roger L’Estrange, “The State of the City of London, in the Late Rebellion. […]”, in The Observator, in Dialogue, volume I, number 345, London: […] J. Bennet, for William Abington, […], →OCLC, page [1], column 1:]
  • 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. [2015, Charles Smutz, Angelos Stavrou, “Preventing Exploits in Microsoft Office Documents through Content Randomization”, in Herbert Bos, Fabian Monrose, Gregory Blanc, editors, Research in Attacks, Intrusions, and Defenses: 18th International Symposium, RAID 2015, Kyoto, Japan, November 2–4, 2015: Proceedings (LNCS; 9404; Sublibrary SL4 (Security and Cryptology)), Cham, Switzerland; Heidelberg, Baden-Württemburg: Springer International Publishing, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 241:]

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.
2. Cognates
3. 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”).
4. 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.
5. The verb is derived from the noun. See: Middle English Nouns 'eg', Old Norse Nouns 'egg', Dutch Nouns 'ei', German Nouns 'Ei', Danish Nouns 'æg', Swedish Nouns 'ägg', Latin Nouns 'ōvum', Greek Nouns 'αβγό', Czech Nouns 'vejce', Polish Nouns 'jajo', Slovak Nouns 'vajce', English Nouns 'ey'.

Verbs referencing "egg"

Norwegian Bokmål Nouns egg, Danish Nouns æg, Ancient Greek Nouns ᾠόν, Russian Nouns овал.