Egg

/ˈɛɡ/ · noun

Meaning

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..

Definitions by Sense

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.
2. Synonym of ovum (“the female gamete of an animal”); an egg cell.
3. (countable) A thing which looks like or is shaped like an egg (sense 1.1).
4. Senses relating to people.
5. Something regarded as containing a (usually bad) thing at an early stage.
6. One of the blocks of data injected into a program's address space for use by certain forms of shellcode, such as "omelettes".
7. To throw (especially rotten) eggs (noun sense 1.1.1) at (someone or something).
8. To inadvertently or intentionally distort (the circular cross-section of something, such as tube) to an elliptical or oval shape.

Example 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.

[T]hinke him as a Serpents egge, / VVhich hatch'd, vvould as his kinde grovv mischieuous; / And kill him in the ſhell.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Synonyms for egg

Antonyms for egg

Related Words

Word Forms

• eggs
• egge
• egging
• egged
• no-table-tags
• glossary
• egg
• eggest
• eggedst
• eggeth
• -
• agg

Usage Notes

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