Egg on Your Face
Meaning
To have egg on your face means to be embarrassed or humiliated, especially after making a mistake or being proven wrong in public.
Origin
The vivid image of having "egg on your face" is strongly rooted in the raucous world of vaudeville and early cinema. Audiences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries delighted in slapstick comedy, where performers would often be pelted with food, including eggs, as a visual gag to signify public humiliation or failure. This literal act of getting messy and looking foolish became a universally understood symbol of disgrace, perfectly capturing the feeling of embarrassment when one's predictions or boasts fall spectacularly flat.
Examples
- After boasting about his perfect record, the politician definitely had egg on his face when an old scandal was revealed.
- The meteorologist had egg on her face when the promised sunny day turned into a torrential downpour.