Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A thief, especially a burglar or safecracker.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as yeggman.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun cant, slang A person who breaks open safes; a burglar.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown.

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Examples

  • After the jump: The definition of "yegg"; teenagers are cruel and unbearable; mutants really seem to cheese people off; and other life lessons kids learn from comics.

    NPR Topics: News 2010

  • Eight months ago, any yegg with the ability to execute a financial transaction was a genius, but the bubble that burst in Q4 was the result of 8 years of Bush economic policy that can be summed up thus: reckless deregulation.

    Beau Friedlander: Cheap Gas = Death of Green? 2009

  • You need to check in at yegg central for some new lines.

    Hillary Spokesperson Compares Obama To...Ken Starr! 2009

  • Eight months ago, any yegg with the ability to execute a financial transaction wa ...

    Beau Friedlander: Cheap Gas = Death of Green? 2009

  • Eight months ago, any yegg with the ability to execute a financial transaction wa ...

    Beau Friedlander: Cheap Gas = Death of Green? 2009

  • Thus I gained a deep devotion for our language undented, and it drives me nearly batty when I hear my only child springing wads of hard boiled language such as dips and yegg-men use, and I want a reformation or

    Rippling Rhymes Walt Mason

  • You can't believe that I'm not simply an ordinary yegg, like the rest of the crooks you used to know.

    The Gem Collector 1928

  • "And what the devil do you want with Miss Chester, you slimy, crawling second-story-worker, you damned, oily yegg?" enquired

    Piccadilly Jim 1928

  • That's one of the most notorious yegg-men on the other side.

    The Intrusion of Jimmy 1928

  • And is it likely that a baronet -- _with_ money, mind you -- is going to carry on the yegg business as a side line?

    The Gem Collector 1928

Comments

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  • Curses on you for getting here first and congratulations, oplyse. I love this word.

    January 8, 2007

  • safecracker / burglar / thief

    April 25, 2007

  • Down round Corlear's Hook and Hell's Kitchen there were all these dives so dangerous that God-fearing citizens would shit to think of them - Cat Alley, the Lava Pit, the Tub of Blood - spawning grifters and shysters and banco artists, second-storey men, gun-molls and gangsters and lushes and hypos, hopheads, yeggs, sirens, dames...

    - Elizabeth Young, Shrinking

    September 10, 2008

  • cf. yeggman

    January 11, 2009