Nest egg
积蓄
A: My company is not doing well and I'm worried that the boss may give me my walking papers soon.
B: If you have a nest egg, you wouldn't feel so worried at a time like this.
Note: This idiom refers to a sum of money saved for future use. The allusion is to putting a real or china egg into a hen's nest to encourage her to lay. The connection between this and the "savings" meaning isn't exactly clear. Perhaps the idea was that the egg put into the nest could be later retrieved, after the hen had laid. The practice of putting eggs into nests as an inducement is recorded from as early as the 14th century. The use of nest egg to refer to savings goes back to the 1700s.
|