nest
egg noun
- a natural or artificial egg left in a nest especially to induce a hen to continue to lay there
- an amount of money that has been saved or kept for a special purpose; a fund of money accumulated as a reserve; an amount of money that is saved over a usually long period of time to pay for something in the future :
They
built up a nest egg for their son's college education.
The allusion is to The connection
between putting a real or china egg into a hen's nest to encourage
her to lay. and the 'savings' meaning isn't exactly clear. It may be
that the idea was that the egg that was put into the nest could be
later retrieved, after the hen had laid.
Sources:
Photocopies from 21st February
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