Word.ws English Dictionary

eggs in moonshine

eggs in moonshine noun: a fanciful notion; an unrealistic or ludicrous concept.

Noun

eggs in moonshine pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) A fanciful notion; an unrealistic or ludicrous concept.
    • You may discourse of Hermes' ascending spirit, of Orpheus' enchanting harp, of Homer's divine fury, of Tyrtaeus' enraging trumpet, of Pericles' bouncing thunderclaps, of Plato's enthusiastical ravishment, and I wot not what marvellous eggs in moonshine: but a fly for all your flying speculations...1593, Gabriel Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation, or, A New Praise of the Old Ass
    • […] your Majesty knows I think the Horn—and that bit of broken stone over there—and your great King Peter—and your Lion Aslan—are all eggs in moonshine.1951, C. S. Lewis, chapter 7, in Prince Caspian, Collins, published 1998
    Synonyms:
    pie in the sky

Synonyms of eggs in moonshine

Origin of eggs in moonshine

Probably from the name of a dish, referred to in 16th- and 17th-century English cookbooks, made of egg yolks lightly poached in sweetened rosewater. See also moonshine, culinary sense (US). https://web.archive.org/web/20160721010231/http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/eggsinmoonshine.htm

Questions about eggs in moonshine

What does eggs in moonshine mean?
Eggs in moonshine means a fanciful notion; an unrealistic or ludicrous concept.
What part of speech is eggs in moonshine?
Eggs in moonshine is a noun.

Words near eggs in moonshine in the dictionary

  1. eggs Florentine
  2. eggs Hussarde
  3. eggs in a basket
  4. eggs in a hole
  5. eggs in baskets
  6. eggs in moonshine
  7. eggs in one's beer
  8. eggs in the basket
  9. eggs Neptune
  10. eggs of Columbus
  11. eggs on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eggs in moonshine (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-eggs in moonshine.wav.

Cite this entry: “eggs in moonshine.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eggs_in_moonshine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.