chicken and egg
Which came first?
Chicken and egg describes a situation where two things each seem to cause the other, making it impossible to determine which came first: It's a chicken-and-egg problem—does poverty cause poor education, or does poor education cause poverty?
The phrase alludes to the ancient paradox of origins.
Also appears as chicken-or-egg or chicken-or-the-egg.
- problemMatter requiring resolution
- conundrumPerplexing problem or question
- dilemmaForced choice between undesirables
- feedback systemsProcesses where outputs affect inputs
- paradoxSeemingly absurd truth
logical paradox · causality · causal loop · interdependence · mutual dependence · circular reasoning · vicious cycle · infinite regress · riddle · origin · poultry · puzzle · self-reference · question · perplexity · evolution · quandary · existential questions
- predicamentspredicament, dilemma, bind, pickle, pinch
- Self-referenceself-reference, self-referential, recursion, recursive, meta
- network effectscritical mass, virality, nodes, connections, winner-take-all
chicken and eggcause and effect
How events produce results
first cause · domino effect · causal chain · root cause · prime mover
chicken and eggforegone conclusion
Result assumed beforehand
no-brainer · cut and dried · clear-cut · self-evident · straightforward
chicken and eggbeginning to end
The complete duration
start to finish · A to Z · linear progression · chronological order · from the ground up