Origin of "egg on my face"

Where does the phrase "egg on my face" come from, and what is its meaning?

Solution 1:

It often implies that you have made a serious mistake, but more strictly it indicates that something you have done (or some turn of events) has left you looking embarrassed or foolish:

Murray knows all about the Chilean 12th seed — he practised with him last week — and the British number one realises he could be left with egg on his face if he leaves Gonzalez an easy, mid-court ball.

Where it came from (source):

I know of two suggestions for where it came from. The late John Ciardi suggested an origin in the lower-class and more rowdy kind of theatrical performance, in which an incompetent actor would have been pelted with eggs and forced off the stage. The other is that it was a comment on a minor social gaffe at a meal, when poor manners or sloppy eating left egg around your mouth.

And also (source):

From the embarrassment suffered if the yellow yolk is on ones lips or beard after eating a soft boiled egg in one of those egg cups, a favorite breakfast of the upper crust... Yellow egg shows up especially well on a beard or mustache.

Solution 2:

Etymonline suggests 1964 as the first recording and includes its meaning.

To have egg on (one's) face "be made to look foolish" is first recorded 1964.

But another website claims an 1941 source and includes two guesses at the phrase's origin with the second being more likely:

The late John Ciardi suggested an origin in the lower-class and more rowdy kind of theatrical performance, in which an incompetent actor would have been pelted with eggs and forced off the stage. The other is that it was a comment on a minor social gaffe at a meal, when poor manners or sloppy eating left egg around your mouth.

Solution 3:

I found an antedating of the phrase. This clip is from a January 4, 1936 issue of The Spokane Daily Chronicle. In this article, two friends gossip about a third friend (Marnie) who came for a visit but rudely rushed off because she had double-booked appointments. The article is full of idioms and seems to make a point of including all the latest fashionable slang of the time. Interestingly, the 1941 reference mentioned by @MrHen appears to have been an AP story and was printed in this same newspaper.

Also of note, it appears Michael Quinion has updated his entry on this phrase, since this question was asked, with another plausible origin of the phrase:

Subscriber Cal Clifford put a possible new perspective on the expression by mentioning egg-sucking dogs: “Occasionally, a trusted, working farm dog would develop the bad habit of taking eggs from nests and eating them, turning himself from asset into liability.” I found several examples of the term, including these:

His chief business was the doing away with dogs of ill-repute in the country; vicious dogs, sheep-killing dogs, egg-sucking dogs, were committed to Alan’s dread custody, and often he would be seen leading off his wretched victims to his den in the woods, whence they never returned. Glengarry School Days by Ralph Connor, 1902.

He’s a miserable, fox-faced scoundrel, and I’ve no more use for him than I have for an egg-sucking dog. Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp, by Annie Roe Carr, about 1919.

So it’s just possible that the expression might be a figurative extension from that of a dog found with egg around its muzzle, mute evidence of depravity.