To tell someone to go suck an egg is an angry and rude way to tell them to go away, similar to take a hike, piss off, go jump off a log, get lost, etc.; an indignant response to a comment, similar to go to hell. The expression can be used without the word go, but this is unusual.
While go suck an egg is mostly an expression of disdain and scorn, it can also be used in a humorous and non-serious way, as a joke among friends when one is teasing another. It does not necessarily mean to literally “go away,” but is more often used in a similar way to fuck off or go to hell, meaning ‘Stop irritating me. I don’t care what you have to say.’ There are many similar idioms in English. A possible variation is “go suck eggs.”
Origin of Go Suck an Egg
This idiom is often said to have derived from the archaic (but sometimes still heard) idiom ‘teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’ Since sucking an egg is an easy thing to do, mastered by even the most foolish, to presume to teach your grandmother to do so is like offering needless help or advice to an expert:
“‘Don’t pull that bandage so tight, doctor. You want to have me running over after you in an hour to come a loosen it.’ ‘That’s right, Mehitabel, teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’” – Arlo Bates, The Puritans, 1898
Other similar expressions are don’t teach your grandmother how to milk ducks and don’t teach your grandmother to steal sheep.
Although some contend that sucking eggs was something older folks did when they lost their teeth, it is much more likely that this was just an absurd image to bring up and that many more versions exist, but the egg-sucking version survived.
However, a ‘suck-egg’ was once slang for a young fellow or a silly person or an adjective used to describe a particularly vicious dog (suck-egg dog) and hence also used to refer to anyone mean.
There is also the expression “that (or something) sucks eggs,” which is a way of saying that something is very bad, disappointing, or undesirable and is where we get our more modern expression ‘that sucks.’
It is difficult to say exactly from which expression the present idiom derived, but it is most likely related to sucking eggs being something that a mean or vicious person would do.
Similar Idioms
All of these idioms are colorful ways of telling someone to go away; stop bothering me; stop annoying me; stop angering me, etc.
- Take a Hike
- Get lost
- Piss off (UK)
- Go jump in a lake
- Go jump off a log
- Go fly a kite
- Go play in traffic
- Take a long walk off a short pier
- Beat it
- Kick rocks
- Also: buzz off, shove off, bugger off, bug off