# curate's egg

idiom

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/curates-egg
Updated: 2026-08-10

## Meaning

A thing which has good and bad parts, but is overall spoiled by the bad.

## Examples

- The new movie is a curate's egg.
- This vacation package is a curate's egg.
- The local festival is a curate's egg this year.
- The restaurant's menu is a curate's egg, with delicious appetizers but very poor main courses.
- The updated software is a bit of a curate's egg because the new interface looks amazing but the system crashes every time I try to save my work.
- Her latest painting is a curate's egg, showing beautiful colors in the sky but featuring a very messy and distracting foreground.
- While the novel contains moments of genuine brilliance, it remains a curate's egg due to its disjointed narrative and weak character development.

## Origin

From a cartoon by the Franco-British cartoonist and author George Du Maurier (1834–1896) captioned “True Humility” in the 9 November 1895 issue of Punch magazine, in which a bishop says to his mealtime guest, a curate, “I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr. Jones!” The timid curate replies, “Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! Parts of it are excellent!”.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.