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View synonyms for 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.


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Word History and Origins

Origin of goose egg1

1350–1400; 1885–90, Americanism, goose egg fordef 1; Middle English: the egg of a goose
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Idioms and Phrases

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]
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Example Sentences

As in, the five goose eggs the Dodgers’ once-struggling bullpen put on the scoreboard.

A goose flew onto the field in the eighth inning of the Dodgers-Padres game Wednesday night — perhaps fitting as the Dodgers laid goose eggs after the third inning.

I don't know how to put this other than to form a rhetorical circle with my thumb and forefinger signaling a big fat goose egg.

From Salon

No punctures, but a little goose egg on top of her sweet head.

Concerned about a serious injury, I can report that she is well, with just a few bruises and a goose egg on her forehead to show for her tumble.

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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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