curate's egg



curate's egg

Something that is partly good and partly bad. Taken from a British cartoon about a curate, or priest, who was given a bad egg but focused on the egg's good characteristics as he did not want to offend the person who gave it to him. Primarily heard in UK. Our vacation was a bit of a curate's egg; the first few days were sunny, but the rest of the week was ruined by the heavy rain and flooding.
See also: egg

Common Names:

NameGenderPronouncedUsage
Thamarai-Tamil
Kuzmakooz-MAHRussian
AristotleAR-ə-stah-təl (English), ER-ə-stah-təl (English)Ancient Greek (Anglicized)
AndrÉIa-Portuguese (Brazilian)
Zisel-Yiddish
TomÁSto-MAHS (Spanish), too-MASH (Portuguese)Spanish, Portuguese, Irish