Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a person, usu. qualified by adj.; esp. as good egg n. (2); old egg etc.

[1606		Shakespeare Macbeth IV ii: son.: Thou liest, thou shag-hair’d villain. mur.: What! you egg. Young fry of treachery!].
1855		implied in bad egg under bad adj.
1912		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 28: Making a sick call upon a hard boiled egg who overfed at an outing where the eats were free.
1920		R. Lardner Big Town 233: Some egg in the gallery hollered ‘You said a mouthful, kid!’.
1927		S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 391: Makes me indignant, those spiritual cold-storage eggs not supporting you!
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 19: He must look like some queer egg.
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 78: Who don’t, you poor egg?
1936		Wodehouse Young Men in Spats 9: It was the hour of the morning snifter, and a little group of Eggs and Beans and Crumpets had assembled in the smoking-room of the Drones Club to do a bit of inhaling.
1940		M. de la Roche Whiteoak Heritage (1949) 122: At the moment I think you’re rather a queer egg.
1947		S. Lewis Kingsblood Royal (2001) 254: He’s [...] a very smart egg.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 334: What an odd egg Hearn is.
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 77: The manager told me he was a stupid egg.
1963		J. Blake letter 8 Sept. in Joint (1972) 222: This ticktock, dingdong, jargon-hung, gimmick-headed little fat rotten egg.
1968		‘Sl. of Watts’ in Current Sl. III:2 40: Righteous egg, n. A good guy.
1975		T. Berger Sneaky People (1980) 202: He turned out to be a real rotten egg.
1981		Graziano & Corsel Somebody Down Here Likes Me, Too 97: I have never seen so many nice eggs in my life.
1983		S. Gee Never in My Lifetime in Best Radio Plays (1984) 64: Gently. You’ve got your brain in there, you daft egg.
1991		G. Jen Typical American (1998) 172: A rotten egg, my brother called me, to my face.
1991		R.G. Barratt ‘Ambos Have to Cop It Sweet’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] [S]ome egg with a scratch on his finger.

2. (US) an important person.

1904

Ade ‘The Fable of the Red-Letter Night’ in True Bills 31: The Pilkinses were all the Eggs in Smartweed. They owned a big General Store [...] they sent to Chicago for their Clothes and ate Ice-Cream in the Winter-Time.

3. (also double-yolker) a fool or obnoxious person.

1917		S. Smith ‘The Gumps’ [comic strip] Get a plumber quick, you egg.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 142: Then I suddenly decided she was an egg and that I didn’t love her at all.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 338: I wonder what museum those eggs came from.
1953		R. Prather ‘Double Take’ in Best of Manhunt (2019) [ebook] ‘When did you see this egg in my office?’.
1968		J. Alard He who Shoots Last 119: There’s rotten eggs in all walks of life.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 91: ‘Fuck off, you egg!’ they shouted. [Ibid.] 156: ‘I told you he was a double-yolker, didn’t I?’ ‘Yeah, he’s a fucking mug.’.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 122: No, don’t be an egg.
1992		A. Duff One Night Out Stealing 13: These kinda people are eggs, as they call it in the vernacular here.
1998		P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 236: ‘All those people listed there, every one of them is a blue-ribbon egg.’ ‘Egg?’ ‘An easy mark’.
1996		Eble Campus Sl. Sept. 3: egg – socially awkward person; a loser; someone who doesn’t belong to the cool crowd.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 29: egg n. Idiot, stuoid person.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 61/1: double yolker n. an idiot; a stupid, incompetent person.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 65/1: egg n. 2 (also eggroll) an idiot, a stupid person.

4. (US Und.) the victim of a confidence trick.

1940

D. Maurer Big Con 27: The joint wanted to know how much your egg would blow.