egg cream
7
6.7
- noun
- /ˈɛɡ ˌkriːm/
- US
:
egg cream
- They had stopped together at the candy stand for an egg cream, sipped it, and talked about Cousin Max and the end of the war.
- chocolate egg cream
Examples
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The recipe for a classic egg cream includes milk, soda water, and flavored syrup.
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- Give me an egg cream, Marco, will you?
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May I have an egg cream?
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I need an egg cream.
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- And I'll also have an egg cream.
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You know how to make an egg cream, don't you?
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You better make it four egg creams.
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"The best egg creams in California," he said.
Fiction book (1994) -
Paulie, give me another chocolate egg cream.
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That's five egg creams you're drinking.
Surface Forms
Morphology
egg + cream
A B1 learner who knows 'egg' and 'cream' would naturally expect a beverage containing egg and/or cream, but the established meaning refers to a soda-milk-syrup drink that typically contains neither. This arbitrary historical name makes the meaning unpredictable from its parts and therefore idiomatic rather than compositional.
Etymology
Egg cream may come from the foamy top that looks like beaten egg and cream. One popular story says people called the sweet milk-and-soda drink that because of the foam, so the name stuck even though the drink has no egg or cream.