The expression "a curate's egg" originally meant something that is partly good and partly bad, but as a result is entirely spoiled. Modern usage has tended to change this to mean something having a mix of good and bad qualities.

Derivation and history

The phrase derives from a cartoon

Cartoon

A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

 in the humorous British magazine Punch

Punch (magazine)

Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...

on 9 November 1895. Drawn by George du Maurier

George du Maurier

George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier was a French-born British cartoonist and author, known for his cartoons in Punch and also for his novel Trilby. He was the father of actor Gerald du Maurier and grandfather of the writers Angela du Maurier and Dame Daphne du Maurier...

 and entitled "True Humility", it pictured a timid-looking curate

Curate

A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...

 taking breakfast in his bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

's house.

The bishop says, "I'm afraid you've got a bad egg, Mr Jones." The curate replies, "Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!"

The expression refers to an objective understanding of the depicted scenario: since an egg that is even partly "bad" is effectively inedible, the supposedly "excellent" parts do not redeem it. The humour is derived from the fact that, given the social situation, the timid curate feels that he dare not complain about the quality of an inedible egg that would ordinarily be immediately rejected.

In the final issue of Punch (1992), the cartoon was re-printed with the caption: Curate: This f***ing egg's off!

Examples

• "The past spring and summer season has seen much fluctuation. Like the curate's egg, it has been excellent in parts."

—Minister's Gazette of Fashion (1905)

• "All the same it is a curate's egg of a book. While the whole may be somewhat stale and addled, it would be unfair not to acknowledge the merits of some of its parts."

—Oxford Magazine (1962)

• "Like the curate's egg, the details of Wegener's hypothesis were good in parts."

—The Scientists by John Gribben (2001)