Adjacent Words

Chicken definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CHICKEN, n.
1. The young of fowls, particularly of the domestic hen, or gallinaceous fowls.
2. A person of tender years.
3. A word of tenderness.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: easily frightened [syn: chicken, chickenhearted, lily-livered, white-livered, yellow, yellow- bellied] n
1: the flesh of a chicken used for food [syn: chicken, poulet, volaille]
2: a domestic fowl bred for flesh or eggs; believed to have been developed from the red jungle fowl [syn: chicken, Gallus gallus]
3: a person who lacks confidence, is irresolute and wishy-washy [syn: wimp, chicken, crybaby]
4: a foolhardy competition; a dangerous activity that is continued until one competitor becomes afraid and stops

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: Middle English chiken, from Old English cicen young chicken; akin to Old English cocc cock Date: 14th century 1. a. the common domestic fowl (Gallus gallus) especially when young; also its flesh used as food — compare jungle fowl b. any of various birds or their young 2. a young woman 3. a. coward b. any of various contests in which the participants risk personal safety in order to see which one will give up first 4. [short for chickenshit] slang petty details 5. slang a young male homosexual II. adjective Date: 1941 1. a. scared b. timid, cowardly 2. slang a. insistent on petty details of duty or discipline b. petty, unimportant III. intransitive verb (chickened; chickening) Date: 1943 to lose one's nerve — usually used with out <seemed to exhibit courage, manliness, and conviction when others chickened out — J. R. Seeley>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n., adj., & v. --n. (pl. same or chickens) 1 a young bird of a domestic fowl. 2 a a domestic fowl prepared as food. b its flesh. 3 a youthful person (usu.with neg. : is no chicken). 4 colloq. a children's pastime testing courage, usu. recklessly. --adj. colloq. cowardly. --v.intr. (foll. by out) colloq. withdraw from or fail in some activity through fear or lack of nerve. Phrases and idioms: chicken-and-egg problem (or dilemma etc.) the unresolved question as to which of two things caused the other. chicken brick an earthenware container in two halves for roasting a chicken in its own juices. chicken cholera see CHOLERA. chicken-feed 1 food for poultry. 2 colloq. an unimportant amount, esp. of money. chicken-hearted (or -livered) easily frightened; lacking nerve or courage. chicken-wire a light wire netting with a hexagonal mesh. Etymology: OE cicen, cycen f. Gmc

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Chicken Chick"en, n. [AS. cicen, cyceun, dim. of coc cock; akin to LG. kiken, k["u]ken, D. Kieken, kuiken, G. k["u]chkein. See Cock the animal.] 1. A young bird or fowl, esp. a young barnyard fowl. 2. A young person; a child; esp. a young woman; a maiden. ``Stella is no chicken.'' --Swift. Chicken cholera, a contagious disease of fowls; -- so called because first studied during the prevalence of a cholera epidemic in France. It has no resemblance to true cholera.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(chickens, chickening, chickened) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Chickens are birds which are kept on a farm for their eggs and for their meat. Lionel built a coop so that they could raise chickens and have a supply of fresh eggs. ...free-range chickens. = hen N-COUNT • Chicken is the flesh of this bird eaten as food. ...roast chicken with wild mushrooms. ...chicken soup. 2. If someone calls you a chicken, they mean that you are afraid to do something. (INFORMAL) I'm scared of the dark. I'm a big chicken. = coward N-COUNT [disapproval] • Chicken is also an adjective. Why are you so chicken, Gregory? ADJ: v-link ADJ 3. If you say that someone is counting their chickens, you mean that they are assuming that they will be successful or get something, when this is not certain. I don't want to count my chickens before they are hatched. PHRASE: V inflects 4. If you describe a situation as a chicken and egg situation, you mean that it is impossible to decide which of two things caused the other one. It's a chicken and egg situation. Does the deficiency lead to the eczema or has the eczema led to certain deficiencies? PHRASE: PHR n 5. chickens come home to roost: see roost

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

chik'-'-n, chik'-in (Anglo-Saxon, cicen or cycen; Latin, Gallus ferrugineus; alektruon, masculine and fem.): A barnyard fowl of any age. The record is to be found in the books of the disciples, but Jesus is responsible for the only direct mention of chickens in the Bible. Mt 23:37, contains this: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Luke's version of the same scene says: "Even as a hen gathereth her own brood under her wings" (Lu 13:34). There is no reference to chickens in the Old Testament sufficiently clear to specify our common domestic bird. The many references to "fatted fowl" in these older records, in accordance with the text and the history of the other nations, were pigeons, guineas, ducks, geese and swans. The importation of peafowl by Solomon is mentioned. The cock and hen are distinctive birds and would have been equally a marvel worth recording had they been introduced at that time. From the history of the bird in other countries it is a safe estimate to place their entrance into Palestine between five and six hundred years BC. That would allow sufficient time for them to increase and spread until they would be well known and common enough to be used effectively in the ministry of Jesus Christ. Every historical fact and indication points to the capture and domestication of the red jungle fowl in Burma. The Chinese records prove that they first secured imported fowl from the West in 1400 BC. Their use for food dated from 1200 to 800 BC, in the Book of Manu, but it was specified that only those that ran wild were to be eaten. From these countries they were imported to Greece and Italy, and from there carried south into Palestine Homer ([?] 10; compare also alektruon, P 602) names a man Cock, alektor, which seems to indicate that he knew the bird. Pindar gives them slight mention; Aristophanes wrote of them as "Persian birds," which indicates that they worked their way westward by importation. I cannot find them in the records of Aristotle, but Aristophanes advanced the idea that not the gods, but the birds were rulers of men in ancient times, and compared the comb of the cock with the crown of a king, and pointed out that when he "merely crows at dawn all jump up to their work" (Aves, 489-90). They were common in Italy in the days of Pliny, who was ten years old at the time of the crucifixion of Christ. Pliny gave many rules for raising chickens, proving that much was known of their habits in his time. Yet so credulous was he and so saturated with superstition, that, mixed with his instructions for preserving eggs, brooding and raising chickens, is the statement that on account of the fighting power of the cocks the lions feared them. He wrote that a man named Galerius in the time of the consuls, Lepidus and Catulus, owned a barnyard fowl that spoke. He names Lenius Strabo as the first man to devise a "coupe" to keep fowl in and "cram" them to fatness. He gave the laws governing the use of fowl at table and recorded that in Egypt eggs were hatched in manure beds, which is conclusive proof that birds had been carried across the Mediterranean several centuries previous. The records of Babylon, 600 BC, contain figures undoubtedly intended for cocks, and they were reproduced in marble in Lycia at that time, In all these reproductions the birds have the drooping tail of the wild, and there is no record of the date at which they erected the tail, lifted the head and assumed the upright bearing of today.

Gene Stratton-Porter

Moby Thesaurus

Ancona, Andalusian, Australorp, Bantam, Brahma, Campine, Cochin, Cornish, Cornish hen, Hamburg, Hershey bar, Leghorn, Lord Fauntleroy, Milquetoast, New Hampshire red, Orpington, Percy, Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island red, Rock Cornish, Sumatra, Sussex, afraid, anemic, asthenic, auntie, aviation badge, baby, back out, badge, banty, bar, barn-door fowl, barnyard fowl, bi-guy, biddy, big baby, bisexual, black Minorca, black Spanish, black Sumatra, bloodless, blue Orpington, boggle, broiler, brooder, broody hen, buff Orpington, bull dyke, butch, caille, canard, caneton, capon, catamite, chanticleer, chapon, chevron, chick, chickabiddy, chicken liver, chicken out, chickenhearted, chicky, cock, cockerel, coward, cowardly, cowed, craven, cream puff, crybaby, dastard, daunted, debilitated, desert under fire, dindon, dismayed, domestic fowl, doormat, drake, drooping, droopy, duck, duckling, dull, dull tool, dunghill fowl, dyke, eagle, effeminate, effete, epaulet, etiolated, fag, faggot, faint, fainthearted, faintish, fairy, faisan, falter, fearful, feeble, femme, flabby, flaccid, flit, floppy, fowl, fraid-cat, fraidy-cat, fricatrice, fruit, fryer, funk, funk out, funker, funking, funky, game fowl, gander, get cold feet, gobbler, gone, goody-goody, goose, gosling, grouse, guinea cock, guinea fowl, guinea hen, gunsel, gutless, gutless wonder, hash mark, hen, hen turkey, henhearted, homo, homophile, homosexual, homosexualist, imbecile, impotent, insignia of branch, intimidated, invert, invertebrate, jellyfish, languid, languorous, lesbian, lightweight, lily, lily liver, lily-livered, limber, limp, listless, lose courage, lustless, marrowless, meek soul, milk-livered, milksop, milksoppish, milksoppy, mollycoddle, mouse, mousy, muliebrous, namby-pamby, nance, nancy, nebbish, nerveless, nonentity, oak leaf, oie, old woman, old-womanish, organization insignia, overseas bar, overtimid, overtimorous, panic-prone, panicky, pansy, pantywaist, parachute badge, partlet, partridge, patch, pathic, pheasant, pigeon, pigeonhearted, pigeonneau, pip, pithless, poltroon, poltroonish, pooped, poulard, poulet, poult, poultry, powerless, prissy, pullet, punk, pushover, pusillanimous, quail, queen, queer, quitter, rabbity, roaster, rooster, rubbery, sad sack, sapless, sapphist, scaredy-cat, scuttle, service stripe, setting hen, shoulder patch, shoulder sleeve insignia, sinewless, sissified, sissy, sissyish, skedaddle, slack, soft, softling, softy, sop, speckled Sussex, spineless, spread eagle, spring chicken, spunkless, squab, star, stewing chicken, strengthless, stripe, submarine badge, timid, timorous, tom, tom turkey, tribade, turkey, turkey gobbler, turkey-cock, unhardened, unmanly, unmanned, unnerved, unstrung, volaille, weak, weak sister, weak-kneed, weakhearted, weakling, weakly, white Orpington, white Plymouth Rock, white Wyandotte, white feather, white liver, white-livered, wild duck, womanish, yellow