dog egg

English

Alternative forms

• dog-egg, dog's egg

Etymology

Probably popularised by the magazine Viz and its spin-off Roger's Profanisaurus books. Compare the Australian slang barker's egg, attested earlier.

Noun

dog egg (plural dog eggs) (British, vulgar, slang, humorous)

1. A lump of dog faeces.
   • 1997 October–November, “The Legendary Faberge Musical Dog’s Egg”, in Viz, number 86, page 2:

     For the first time a musical collector ‘dog’s egg’ created in the opulent Faberge tradition, capturing magnificently the magic of a fouled footpath.

   • 2011 March 15, Dan Jones, “Time to forgive and end all this moral hypocrisy”, in Evening Standard, page 59:

     Terry was essentially stripped of the armband for boinking Wayne Bridge’s ex, and having a family of roughnecks who were as attractive to tabloid front pages as a nice, fat dog-egg is to a swarm of bluebottles.

   • 2014 December 21, Stewart Lee, “I’ve had it with comedy awards – and so has my bounty hunter alter ego”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎^[1], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-08-18:

     I had chosen to attend the British comedy awards which, once attended, could not be unattended, like the worm-ridden dog egg in the infant school playground which, once seen, cannot be unseen.

2. (derogatory) A worthless or contemptible thing or person.
   • 2005 April, “Review: TimeSplitters: Future Perfect”, in Nintendo Official Magazine, number 152, page 66:

     The fact is Electronic Arts is slowly but surely swallowing up every game, every developer, every THING. It's spitting out anything that resembles originality and crapping out a conveyor belt of similar looking, similar smelling gaming dog-eggs.

   • 2014 March 9, Jeremy Clarkson, “Dear Uncle Tim, thank you for this opportunity to mock you for just 62p”, in The Sunday Times, page 10:

     You can smile and open your eyes wide and look as though you are showering the recipient with praise, but what you’re actually saying is, “You are a dog egg.”

   • 2017, Nate Crowley, 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed), Oxford: Rebellion, page 108:

     Even so, developers Scaly Software couldn’t resist the chance to make a quick buck, and so rushed out this utter dog egg of an update in just eight months.