nest egg
Other forms: nest eggs
Money that you save for the future is a nest egg. Your parents might be saving their nest egg so they can move to Mexico when they retire.
A nest egg is usually a retirement account, a fund you add to regularly so your savings grows every year. You can really describe any cache of saved money as a nest egg — even a piggy bank, growing gradually more full of dimes, is a nest egg of sorts. The term has been around since about 1700, meaning "retirement savings." It comes from the practice of leaving a real or fake egg in a nest to encourage hens to lay.
Definitions of nest egg
-
a fund of money put by as a reserve
-
synonyms:
savings
-
type of:
-
fund, monetary fund
a reserve of money set aside for some purpose
-
fund, monetary fund
-
device consisting of an artificial egg left in a nest to induce hens to lay their eggs in it
-
type of:
-
device
an instrumentality invented for a particular purpose
-
device
Cite this entry
Style:
MLA
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Copy citation
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘nest egg'.
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors.
Send us feedback
Word Family
EDITOR'S CHOICE
Look up nest egg for the last time
Close your vocabulary gaps with personalized learning that focuses on teaching the words you need to know.
