Easter egg
Americannoun
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a chicken egg that is dyed and often given a figure or design, or an imitation of such an egg, as an egg-shaped candy or chocolate, used at Easter as a gift or decoration.
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Digital Technology. an extra feature, as a message or video, hidden in a software program, video game, DVD, etc., and revealed as by an obscure sequence of keystrokes or commands.
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Movies, Television. a hidden message, as a cryptic reference, iconic image, or inside joke, that fans are intended to discover in a television show or movie.
noun
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an egg given to children at Easter, usually a chocolate egg or a hen's egg with its shell painted
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a bonus or extra feature hidden inside a website, computer game, or DVD, that is only revealed after repeated or lengthy viewing or playing
Usage
What does Easter egg mean? Easter eggs can refer to candy eggs or eggs decorated for the Christian holiday of Easter, and searched for during Easter egg hunts. In popular culture, Easters eggs are text, images, visual gags, jokes, or other content that creators intentionally hide in media for their and their viewers' amusement.
Etymology
Origin of Easter egg
First recorded in 1570–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Hardly messaging that brings to mind Easter egg hunts on the White House lawn.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 15, 2026
It’s good news for Easter egg buyers, as the average price of a dozen conventional eggs fell to $1.423 in the fiscal third quarter from $4.766 a year ago.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 1, 2026
No, it’s not an intentional Easter egg for “Stranger Things” fans, but there’s a lot of Easter eggs for George fans.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 22, 2025
But “Fear Street: Prom Queen” treats the curse as an Easter egg and rests on a hazy formulation of human cruelty as its villain instead.
From Salon • May 24, 2025
We’d grown up together in the church, attending the Easter egg hunts as children and later participating side by side in the youth programs.
From "While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement" by Carolyn Maull McKinstry
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.
