Bad Egg

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Meaning:

Bad Egg is a disappointing or unpleasant person, someone who fails to meet expectations.

“What a Bad Egg!”

Origin:

The Term Bad Egg has been around since the 1800s; back in the days before food standards were so high, it was necessary to check that you didn’t crack a bad egg in amongst the other ingredients. Cookbooks advised cracking eggs into a separate bowl to be sure. One bad egg could spoil it all, and the phrase was born; now, it refers to one bad person amongst all the other good ones, can spoil the mood.

The phrase bad egg first appeared in print in the novel “Captain Priest” by Samuel A Hammett in 1855; it read:

Some birds are said to carry brick-bats under their wings to sharpen their bills, and others, stones in maws to whet their appetites, but the Perfect Bird carries a brick in his hat and a stone in his boot.

In the language of his class, the Perfect Bird generally turns out to be “a bad egg.”

Example:

Today we still use the term bad egg to express that someone is a corrupt or unreliable person. An example sentence is:

"Most of the guests are very nice, but there have been some ‘bad eggs.’"

Watch this on YouTube here - Eggs Video - YouTube Video

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