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.
"I put so many lyrical easter eggs in that speech that when the Midnights album came out, after that, the fans were like, 'The whole speech was an easter egg!'"
From BBC • Aug. 13, 2025
But my favorite culinary easter egg is also one of the series' most prevalent and consequential.
From Salon • Jul. 3, 2022
And the original Apple II version included a delightful little easter egg from the early days of PC gaming — putting in the floppy disk upside down would boot up the game upside down.
From The Verge • Jul. 5, 2021
Peters’ appearance as Pietro on Wanda’s doorstep might be anything from a fun easter egg to foreshadowing of what’s to come on the show and in the MCU more broadly.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 5, 2021
This barbed easter egg appears in the second paragraph of the 101-page opinion.
From Slate • Feb. 28, 2018
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.
