egg someone on
phrasal verb

- to strongly encourage someone to do something which might not be a very good idea

The Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

To “egg” meaning “to incite, urge, encourage, instigate”, is from c.1200, from the Old Norse eggja "to goad on, incite”.

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SUNNY-SIDE UP: THE HILARIOUS WORLD OF EGG-THROWING

It's time to whisk yourself away to the small village of Swaton, nestled in the yolky depths of North East England, where egg-throwing is no yolk!

This hair-raising event attracts egg-loving ‘eggocentrics’ from all over the UK, and organizers predict it will soon hatch a global following.

The Egg Throwing Cup is the main event, where teams of two toss an egg back and forth, gradually increasing the distance between them. The team with the last unscrambled egg standing takes home the trophy. Talk about egg-citing!

And don't you worry about wasting fresh eggs - only eggs well past their sell-by date are allowed!

Egg-throwers can participate in five egg-cellent categories, including the classic egg throwing event, where teams throw eggs to each other over increasing distances. In the egg static relay, a dozen eggs must be passed down a line of 11 egg-straordinary throwers as quickly as possible. The egg trebuchet (catapult) involves launching eggs with medieval-style machines, while egg target throwing rewards competitors for hitting specific spots on a human target. For Russian Egg Roulette, two players sit facing each other, taking it in turn to pick from six eggs, five boiled and one raw, and smash them on their foreheads. Whoever avoids the raw egg is declared winner.

With all this egg-straordinary action, it’s no wonder the Swaton Egg Throwing Championship is egg-stremely popular.

Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

- to goad into doing something

agitate against (for), allure, animate, ask forcefully, badger, beseech, bid, bother, bug, bulldoze into, bully, cajole, cheer on, chivvy, coax, coerce, compel, demand, dragoon, drum, EGG ON, embolden, encourage, enjoin, entice, entreat, envigorate, exhort, fire the enthusiasm of (the imagination of), fire up, foment, force, galvanise, goose, harass, harry, hassle, hound, hustle, impassion, impel, implore, incentify, incentivise, incite, induce, inflame, insist (on), inspirit, instigate, inveigle, key up, light a fire under, lobby, motivate, nag, needle, nudge, oblige, order, pep up, persuade, pester, petition, plead, pour it on, press, pressure, pressurise, prevail on (upon), prod, prompt, propel, provoke, psych up, pump up, push (for), put a bomb under (pressure on, the heat on, the screws on), railroad into, rally, rev up, rouse, spirit up, spur (on), stir (up), sway, talk into, tempt, twist someone’s arm, urge, use pressure on, wheedle

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“Hey, how about we EGG ON some friends to organise a cracking event this weekend? An egg-throwing competition!”

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