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.

   Synonym: provoke

   • 1586, William Warner, “The Fourth Booke. Chapter XX.”, in Albions England. Or Historicall Map of the Same Island: […], London: […] George Robinson [and R. Ward] for Thomas Cadman, […], →OCLC, page 86:

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

   • 1891 February–December, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter XXV, in In the South Seas […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1896, →OCLC:

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

   • 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,

   • 1921 October 8 – December 31, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter VIII, in Mostly Sally [The Adventures of Sally], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 23 March 1923, →OCLC:

     She had deliberately egged him on to wreck his prospects.

• egger-on

• gonge