goose egg

goose egg

noun Informal.
1.
the numeral zero, often used to indicate the failure of a team to score in a game or unit of a game: a pitchers' duel, with nothing but goose eggs on the scoreboard.
2.
a lump raised by a blow, especially on the head.

Origin:
1350–1400; 1885–90, Americanism, for def. 1; Middle English: the egg of a goose
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Goose egg is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Slang Dictionary

goose egg definition


  1. n.
    a score of zero. : We got a goose egg in the second inning.
  2. n.
    a bump on the head. : I walked into a door and got a big goose egg on my forehead.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

goose egg

Zero, nothing, especially a score of zero. For example, Our team did badly, earning goose egg, or My income from writing this year was goose egg. This expression is an Americanization of the earlier British duck's egg. [Mid-1800s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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