Chapter Eel to Ego of E by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

eggs were then drawn on a "spit," and roasted. As this required both despatch and constant attention, the person in charge could not leave them. It must be remembered that the word "spit" had at one time a much wider meaning than it has now. Thus toasting-forks and the hooks of a Dutch oven were termed spits.

"I forgot to tell you, I write short journals now; I have eggs on the spit." - Swift.

   I got eggs for my money means I have valuable money, and received instead such worthless things as eggs. When Wolsey accused the Earl of Kildare for not taking Desmond prisoner, the Earl replied, "He is no more to blame than his brother Ossory, who (notwithstanding his high promises) is glad to take eggs for his money," i.e. is willing to be imposed on. (Campion: History of Ireland, 1633.)
   Like as two eggs. Exactly alike.

"They say we are almost as like as eggs." - Shakespeare: Winter's Tale, i. 2.

   Sure as eggs is eggs. Professor de Morgan suggests that this is a corruption of the logician's formula, "x is x. " (Notes and Queries.)
   Teach your grandmother to suck eggs. Attempting to teach your elders and superiors. The French say, "The goslings want to drive the geese to pasture" (Les oisons veulent mener les ois paître).
   There is reason in roasting eggs. Even the most trivial thing has a reason for being done in one way rather than in some other. When wood fires were usual, it was more common to roast eggs than to boil them, and some care was required to prevent their being "ill-roasted, all on one side," as Touchstone says (As You Like It, iii. 2).

"One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg;
The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg."
Pope: Epistles, ii.

   To tread upon eggs. To walk gingerly, as if walking over eggs, which are easily broken.
   Will you take eggs for your money? "Will you allow yourself to be imposed upon? Will you take kicks for half-pence?" This saying was in vogue when eggs were plentiful as black-berries.

"My honest friend, will you take eggs for money?" - Shakespeare: Winter's Tale, i. 2.

Egg Feast In Oxford the Saturday preceding Shrove Tuesday is so called; it is also called Egg-Saturday, because pasch eggs are provided for the students on that day.

Egg-flip, Egg-hot, Egg-nog Drinks composed of warm spiced ale, with sugar, spirit and eggs; or eggs beaten up with wine, sweetened and flavoured, etc.

Egg-on or Edge-on. A corruption of the Saxon eggian (to incite). The Anglo-Saxon ecg, and Scandinavian eg, means a "sharp point" - hence edge-hog (hedgehog), a hog with sharp points, called in Danish pin- swin (thorny swine), and in French porc-épic, where épic is the Latin spicula (spikes).

Egg Saturday (See above, Egg-Feast .)

Egg-trot A cautious, jog-trot pace, like that of a good housewife riding to market with eggs in her panniers.

Egil Brother of Weland, the Vulcan of Northern mythology. Egil was a great archer, and a tale is told of him the exact counterpart of the famous story about William Tell: One day King Nidung commanded Egil to shoot an apple off the head of his son. Egil took two well-selected arrows from his quiver, and when asked by the king why he took two, replied (as the Swiss peasant to Gessler), "To shoot thee, O tyrant, with the second, if I fail."

Egis (See Ægis .)

Eglantine (3 syl.). Daughter of King Pepin, and bride of her cousin Valentine, the brother of Orson. She soon died. (Valentine and Orson.)
   Madame Eglantine. The prioress in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Good-natured, wholly ignorant of the world, vain of her courtly manners, and noted for her partiality to lap-dogs, her delicate oath, "by seint Eloy," her "entuning the service swetely in her nose," and her speaking French "after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe."