Meaning of Idiom ‘Goose Egg’
1. A score of zero in a sports game or competition.
2. A raised lump on the head resulting from a blow or impact to the head.
3. A failure; a defeat; zero success.
Sentence Examples
“We played hard but ended up with a big fat goose egg. Not one goal!”
“In my first year of owning a website, I came up with a goose egg.”
“How did you manage to get a goose egg on such an easy test?”
“By the second half of the game, the score was still goose egg.”
“I invested $2000 in that racket. You know what I got back? A big goose egg, that’s what!”
“I was playing with a big iron pipe and dropped it on my forehead. I almost blacked out and ended up with a goose egg the size of a baseball.”
“In the seven games before Tuesday’s matchup, the Hawks put up a goose egg in 20 opportunities.” —Phil Thompson, Chicago Tribune, 22 Feb. 2023
‘The best defenders in Holiday Bowl history are Nebraska, which shut out Arizona in 2009 for the game’s lone goose egg, and the pandemic.” —Bryce Millercolumnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 27 Dec. 2022
“This one will probably garner another big fat goose egg on Rotten Tomatoes.” —Andy Meek, BGR, 12 Aug. 2022
Origin
This idiom is an American version of the older British ‘duck’s egg’ which, itself, came from the game of Cricket, in which, during the 1930s, failing to score became known as ‘getting a duck’s egg.’ A duck egg does, more or less, have the shape of a zero. Presumably, the American version is due to the similarly shaped goose egg being even bigger than a duck egg.
