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View synonyms for lay an egg

lay an egg

  1. To fail, or to have one's efforts fall flat: “Jim tried to tell a few jokes, but each time he forgot the punch line and laid an egg.”


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Idioms and Phrases

Fail, especially in a public performance; make a humiliating error. For example, Carol really laid an egg last night when she forgot her lines , or, as Variety had it in October 1929: “Wall Street Lays An Egg.” The term originated in the late 1800s in vaudeville and was extended to nontheatrical failures in the early 1900s.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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