ab ovo
Preserved but no longer current.
From the very beginning. Stasinus, in his Cypna, a poem in 11 books belonging to the Homeric cycle and forming an intro- duction to the Iliad, does not rush (as does the Iliad itself) in medias res, but begins with the eggs of Leda, from one of which Helen was born. If Leda had not laid this egg, Helen would never have been born, therefore Paris could not have eloped with her, therefore there would have been no Trojan War, etc.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “ab ovo” mean?
From the very beginning. Stasinus, in his Cypna, a poem in 11 books belonging to the Homeric cycle and forming an intro- duction to the Iliad, does not rush (as does the Iliad itself) in medias res, but begins with the eggs of Leda, from one of which Helen was born. If Leda had not laid this egg, Helen would never have been born, therefore Paris could not have eloped with her, therefore there would have been no Trojan War, etc.
Is “ab ovo” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.