egg on

• From Middle English eggen (“to incite; urge on; instigate”), from Old Norse eggja (“to incite”), from egg (“edge”). More at edge.
• A variant of the archaic "edge on."

This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

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egg on (third-person singular simple present eggs on, present participle egging on, simple past and past participle egged on)

1. (transitive, idiomatic) To encourage or coax a person to do something, especially something foolhardy or reckless.
   • 1586, William Warner, “The Fourth Booke. Chapter XX.”, in Albions England. A Continued Historie of the Same Kingdome, from the Originals of the First Inhabitants thereof: […], 5th edition, London: […] Edm[und] Bollifant for George Potter, […], published 1602, →OCLC, page 96:

     The Neatreſſe, longing for the reſt, / Did egge him on to tell / How faire ſhe vvas, and vvho ſhe vvas.

   • 1892, chapter 35, in Lesslie Hall, transl., Beowulf:

     Then I heard that at morning one brother the other / With edges of irons egged on to murder,

   • 1908, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 25, in In the South Seas:

     He resented the idea of interference from those who had […] egged him on to a new peril.

   • 1912, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 8, in The Adventures of Sally:

     She had deliberately egged him on to wreck his prospects.

• provoke

• egger-on

• gonge