Word.ws English Dictionary

century egg

century egg noun: a Chinese delicacy made by preserving a duck, chicken or quail egg in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls for several weeks to several months.

century egg: a Chinese delicacy made by preserving a duck, chicken or quail egg in a mixture of clay, ash, salt,...
Image: en:Kowloonese, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

century egg (plural century eggs)

  1. A Chinese delicacy made by preserving a duck, chicken or quail egg in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls for several weeks to several months.
    • Almonds, parched watermelon seeds—esteemed as a great delicacy—spareribs covered with a mixture of molasses sugar, fried fish, chicken livers and century eggs were put on the table at once.1912 November 15, “Chop suey hoax exposed”, in The Mixer & Server, volume 21, number 11, page 35
    • More or less is heard about the Chinese "century eggs." These are duck eggs which have been preserved by a coating of mud, rice hulls, lime and wood ashes.1922 December 20, E. C. Heinsohn, “Eggs and Poultry in China”, in The Egg Reporter, page 28

century egg meaning in Malay, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese

century egg in Malay

Chinese delicacy
telur padi

century egg in Indonesian

Chinese delicacy
telur bitan

century egg in Thai

Chinese delicacy
ไข่เยี่ยวม้า kài-yîao-máa

century egg in Vietnamese

Chinese delicacy
trứng bách thảo
More languagesFewer languages
century egg in Myanmar
ဆေးဘဲဥ hce:bhai:u.

Examples of century egg in a sentence

  • In the middle of the platter were century eggs, eggs which have been left in lime for a long, long time until the yolk has become dark and the white gelatinous.1953, Dorothy Snapp McCammon, We tried to stay, page 95:
  • There are many varieties of congee but the most common is this salted pork with century egg.2015, Deborah Lowe Kwok Yun, The Little Cantonese Cookbook:
  • It has a roasted platter which includes soyed chicken, roast duck, barbecued pork asado, fried five-spice roll, and soyed cucumber with century egg.2022 June 18, “Go on a Binondo food trip this Father's Day at Lucky Chinatown”, in Manila Bulletin, Manila: Manila Bulletin Publishing...

Synonyms of century egg

Forms of century egg

pluralcentury eggs

Questions about century egg

What does century egg mean?
Century egg means a Chinese delicacy made by preserving a duck, chicken or quail egg in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls for several weeks to several months.
What is century egg in Malay?
Century egg in Malay is telur padi. See Century egg meaning in Malay.
How do you use century egg in a sentence?
In the middle of the platter were century eggs, eggs which have been left in lime for a long, long time until the yolk has become dark and the white gelatinous.
What part of speech is century egg?
Century egg is a noun.
What is the plural of century egg?
The plural of century egg is century eggs.

Words near century egg in the dictionary

  1. centurists
  2. centurium
  3. century
  4. century break
  5. century breaks
  6. century egg
  7. century eggs
  8. century of humiliation
  9. century plant
  10. century plants
  11. century year

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: century egg (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-century egg.wav.

Cite this entry: “century egg.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/century_egg. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.