rotten egg

noun

A person who is the latest, the last, or the slowest in a group to arrive somewhere or to perform a certain task.

“Last one there is a rotten egg!”

Meanings

nounrotten egg (plural rotten eggs)

plural rotten eggs

  1. childishhumorousidiomaticslangA person who is the latest, the last, or the slowest in a group to arrive somewhere or to perform a certain task.

    Last one there is a rotten egg!

    1 more example

    This barbaric punishment consisted of chasing the victim all over the school yard, everybody screaming “Rotten egg! Rotten egg!” and pretending to throw missiles.

    1942, McCall's, volume 69, page 23
  2. chiefly transgender slangAn egg (“closeted transgender person”) who overcompensates by being actively transphobic.

    Or because they themselves experience gender dysphoria but have gone down the rotten egg path.

    2021 August 14, Violent_Violette, “Is gender dysphoria an exclusively trans experience?”, in Reddit, asktransgender, archived from the original on 26 Sep 2022
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rotten, egg.

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with rotten egg

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

rotten egg. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rotten%20egg

MLA

“rotten egg.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rotten%20egg. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “rotten egg,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/rotten%20egg.

Source: rotten egg on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.