goose egg

See synonyms for goose egg on Thesaurus.com
nounInformal.
  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.

Origin of goose egg

1
1350–1400; 1885–90, Americanism,for def. 1; Middle English: the egg of a goose

Words Nearby goose egg

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use goose egg in a sentence

  • The one to whom is awarded the goose egg is the next to roll the ball from the dead line in the endeavor to get it into a hole.

  • Then Murmur Goose-Egg went into the smithy, and had the smith make an iron ax of five hundred-weights.

    The Norwegian Fairy Book | Clara Stroebe

Other Idioms and Phrases with goose egg

goose egg

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]

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