[f. EGG v.1 + -ING1.] An urging forward, incitement, instigation. Also egging forward or on.
c. 1200. Trin. Coll. Hom., 197. Þat heued þat Iob helede wið þe deules eginge was his rihte bileue.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 7206. His [Samson’s] wijf wald noght fin Thoru egging of his wiþerwin.
a. 1400. Octouian, 688. Selle hem noght For no eggenges.
1521. Old City Acc. Bk., in Archæol. Jrnl., XLIII. A fyne lost by John Stone for eggyng of an other mannes apprentice from his maistre xxd.
1564. Haward, Eutropius, VII. 63. Antonius began a greate ciuill warre through the … egging forward of his wife Cleopatra.
1598. R. Bernard, trans. Terence’s Hecyra, II. i. They have married by your egging on.
a. 1658. Cleveland, Wks. (1687), 370. How curst an egging … do these unwily Dances bring.
1875. A. R. Hope, Schoolboy Fr., 90. He needed very little egging on, to talk nonsense.
