lay an egg

Cultural  

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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lay an egg Idioms  

1. 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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Example Sentences

"There's a huge investment in raising that chick, and that investment is made by both of the parents. So when one of them is out following fishing vessels, if one of those parents is injured or dies, the chick back on the island will also die, because the one parent isn't enough to keep up feeding this one chick, and an investment that's taken them two years to lay an egg is completely lost."

From BBC

“Lay an egg, lay an egg, lay an egg!” her brothers teased as they watched her sink low, knees akimbo.

From Literature

When a dancer attempts to lay an egg, it is called a grand plié.

From Literature

Jonathan Plissner, a supervisory wildlife biologist at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, told BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday that “it’s very rare” for a bird of Wisdom’s age to lay an egg, noting that “the average age that birds can survive is probably closer to 30 years.”

From New York Times

One of these is called a "brood ball," where they lay an egg in each ball, after they have buried it.

From Science Daily

Related Words

• enact
• perform
• play
• portray