nest egg
nest egg (metaphor)
/ˈnɛst ˌɛɡ/
Meanings
- Money saved for future use, such as retirement.
- A substantial sum of money saved over a long period to be used in the future.
- An artificial or natural egg placed in a hen’s nest to encourage her to lay eggs there.
- The term can be used to describe a savings account or investment fund that has been carefully accumulated as a financial reserve.
Synonyms: savings; reserve; fund; hoard; cache; store; decoy egg; dummy egg.
Example Sentences
- They carefully built a substantial nest egg to fund their retirement.
- Her family’s nest egg was invested in a diversified portfolio to ensure steady growth.
- The farmer placed a nest egg in the henhouse to encourage the new hens to lay there.
Origin and History
The phrase “nest egg” is a powerful metaphor rooted in the agricultural practices of farmers and smallholders in the past. It originates from the simple act of placing a real or artificial egg in a hen’s nest. This “nest egg” served two purposes: it acted as a decoy to encourage the hen to lay her eggs in that specific spot and also as a marker for the farmer. Over centuries, this concrete farming custom laid the groundwork for the figurative meaning we know today.
From Farm to Figurative Meaning
The evolution of the term from a literal object to a financial metaphor is a natural one. The farming practice provides two clear pathways for this transition. The first is the idea of growth and accumulation: a single “nest egg” encourages the hen to lay many more eggs over time. This mirrors how a small sum of money, when saved and invested, grows into a larger fund. The second pathway is the concept of a safe reserve. A hen’s nest is a secure place where eggs are protected, much like a person’s savings are kept safe until needed. Both of these images contributed to the phrase’s shift to a financial sense.
Country of Origin and Earliest Records
The term “nest egg” is believed to have originated in the United Kingdom. The linguistic structure itself, the compounding of “nest” and “egg,” is native to the English language. The earliest documented use of the compound term dates back to the late 16th century, though its use in a financial sense is first reliably recorded in the late 17th century.
One of the earliest known printed records of the figurative use of nest egg appears in The Correspondence of John Locke and Edward Clarke, edited by Benjamin Rand and published by Oxford University Press in 1927. The volume preserves a letter dated 4 May 1686, in which the writer uses the phrase in the sense of a financial reserve. The relevant line reads:
“The rest, I perceive, he is not troubled should remain as a nest egg till a farther occasion.”
This example clearly shows the metaphorical leap from the literal farming practice to the idea of money set aside for future use, placing the phrase’s figurative meaning firmly in late 17th-century England.
Alternative and Imaginative Theories
While the farming origin is the most well-supported theory, other possibilities have been proposed. One idea suggests the phrase arose from the simple compounding of English words, where speakers independently used the clear image of a nest egg to describe both the decoy egg and a small reserve. Another speculative theory is that the term came from a social practice where householders would save a single egg for a later meal, generalizing the idea of a “saved egg” to money. It’s also possible that similar customs or phrases in other European languages influenced the spread and acceptance of this metaphor.
Variants
- nest eggs
- nest-egg
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