Английский Этимологический словарь - egg (n.)

- c.1340, from northern England dialect, from O.N. egg, which vied with M.E. eye, eai (from O.E. жg) until finally displacing it after 1500; both are from P.Gmc. *ajja(m), from PIE *owyo-/*oyyo- "egg." Caxton (15c.) writes of a merchant (probably a north-country man) in a public house on the Thames who asked for eggs, "And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she understode hym not." She did, however, recognize another customer's request for "eyren." Egg nog is Amer.Eng. c.1775, from nog "strong ale," E.Anglian dial., of unknown origin. Egghead was recorded 1907 in the sense of "bald person;" 1918 as "intellectual."