egg candler
- noun
- /ɛɡ ˈkændlər/
- Specialized
:
candil de huevos
- Before packing, each egg was examined with an egg candler to ensure its quality.
Examples
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The farmer used an egg candler to check for cracks and imperfections in the shells.
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An egg candler helps determine if an egg is fertilized without breaking the shell.
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The egg candler revealed a healthy embryo inside the egg.
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Farmers use an egg candler to check for quality.
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Before packing, each egg was examined with an egg candler to ensure its quality.
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An egg candler helps determine if an egg is fertilized without breaking the shell.
-
The farmer used an egg candler to check for cracks and imperfections in the shells.
Surface Forms
Morphology
egg + candler
The compound literally reads as ‘egg’ + ‘candler’ which, by the agentive -er, signals a device or person that 'candles' eggs (i.e., shines light through them), so the basic compositional logic is visible. However, the verb sense 'to candle' (to inspect eggs with light) is specialized and likely unknown to a B1 learner, making the meaning partly inferable but not fully predictable without domain knowledge.
Etymology
Egg candler comes from the old farm practice of holding an egg up to a lit candle so the light shows the inside of the shell. A person who did this was called a candler, and today an egg candler is a small lamp-like device used to check an egg's quality without breaking it.
