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  1. curate's egg love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Chiefly British Something with both good and bad qualities.

Wiktionary

  1. n. idiomatic A thing which has good and bad parts, but is overall spoilt by the bad.

Etymologies

  1. From an 1895 cartoon in Punch, in which a timid curate assures his host, the bishop, that "parts" of his bad egg are excellent. (Wiktionary)
  2. From a story in Punch about a curate who, having been served a bad egg by his bishop, said that parts of it were excellent. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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  1. wotd
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  • jeffazi Something having both good and bad parts.

    [From a cartoon in Punch magazine (London, UK) in which a timid curate (a junior clergy member), when served a stale egg at a bishop's table, tries to assure his host that parts of the egg were edible:

    "One act of sportsmanship by London Irish and a moment's opportunism by Saracens separated these two sides after a curate's egg of a match."
    David Llewellyn; Saracens 24 London Irish 20; The Independent (London, UK);Nov 25, 2007.

    Dec 12, 2007

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‘curate's egg’ has been looked up 1104 times, loved by 5 people, added to 13 lists, commented on 1 time, and is not a valid Scrabble word.