eggs

Noun

egg (countable and uncountable, plural eggs)

1. An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, often housing an embryo within a membrane or shell during its development.
   • 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]...
   1. (countable, specifically) The (usually) non-developing, edible egg (sense 1.1) of a domestic fowl such as a duck, goose, or, especially, chicken; (uncountable) the contents of such an egg or eggs used as food.
      • We made a big omelette with three eggs for breakfast.
   2. (broadly, countable) A food item shaped to resemble an egg (sense 1.1.1), such as a chocolate egg.
2. (also) Synonym of ovum (“the female gamete of an animal”); an egg cell.
   • 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...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...

   Synonyms:

   ovum

3. (countable) A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1).
   • 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 […]...
   1. A swelling on one's head, usually large or noticeable, resulting from an injury.

See all 31 meanings of egg