Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also chook-a-loo, chook-chook, chookey-hen, chookie, chucky) a chicken.

1855		W. Howitt Land, Labour and Gold 93: They overtook a huge and very fat hen trudging along [...] they tied chucky up in a handkerchief, and rode on.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 June 4/1: Lord Augustus has 100 little ‘chookies’ out now, and has given orders [...] for the separation of the bantams from the brahmapootras.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 26 Oct. 2/1: ‘I’ll take all fowl, please’ His plate was heaped up with chookie.
1899		Morn. Post (Cairns, Qld) 11 Jan. 3/1: [headline] Fowl Plays, or, A Story of a Baker and the Chooks.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 27 Jan. 14/3: Poultry-raisers have only sparrow-hawks and carpet-snakes to contend with. Occasionally, if a gang of Hindu cane-thrashers are camped handy, a mysterious leak will occur among the chookies.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Nov. 12/3: A few weeks ago an Auburn (Vic.) dairyman had a row with a neighbor over a hen – a common, no-account chookey hen worth about 2s.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 12 July 1/1: The poultry epidemic has broken out violently in W.A. [...] every other citizen is either a breeder or a buyer of the chook-a-loo.
1910		Eve. Post (Wellington) 30 Apr. 7/5: A Stolen Chook [...] If he had asked for the ‘chook’ [...] his friend would have given it to him.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 June 2nd sect. 12/6: There’s money in hen-fruit. A Belmont poultry farmer is alleged to be clearing £2000 a year from the exertions of the conscientious chook.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 54: Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the chook-chooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens.
1928		Horsham Times (Vic.) 14 Sept. 7/4: Cows, an’ chooks a feed er two.
1933		Eve. Post (Wellington) 1 Nov. 13/2: ‘Cheers for the Chook’ [...] White Leghorn hen Doreen [...] today laid her 357th egg in 365 days.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 342: They’ve got four or five hundred quid stowed away at home, in the fowl-house under the broody chooks.
1945		R.S. Close Love me Sailor 150: They shuffled back, like chooks scolded with an old woman’s apron.
1950		(con. 1936–46) K.S. Prichard Winged Seeds (1984) 161: Pat and Pam dispatched their [...] brown bread and bacon and cuts of chookie with hearty appetite.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 117: How about a chook for tea?
1968		D. O’Grady A Bottle of Sandwiches 128: The boss ran quite a few chooks on the place, too, and sold the eggs.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 130: Things have improved in the lock-up: stew, milk in your tea, the odd chook.
1981		A. Weller Day of the Dog 79: I’m hungry. I could do with a big juicy chook and lots of lovely, lovely chips.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 33: Rondah was laid out on a slab, rotating every twenty minutes, like a chook on a rotisserie.
2005		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper 4 41: He won the day and kept the offending chook.
2011		Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 19 Apr. 🌐 [headline] Pensioner rules roost in chook battle.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 253: Our bosses run around like chooks with their heads cut off.

2. a woman.

1894		Truth (Sydney) 30 Sept. 1/5: She’ll hold her bloomin’ own / With any chook.
1922		Healesville & Yarra Glen Guardian (Vic.) 14 Oct. 4/5: Maria ’ops out on to the [tennis] court with another old chook. Maria takes first bang [...] and the other old chook misses it.
1937		H. Drake-Brockman Blister Act I: Don’t mean to say you’ve found some poor chook willing to take you on, Sid?
1949		R. Park Poor Man’s Orange 263: ‘We ain’t licked,’ he said [...] ‘No, we ain’t licked yet, old chook.’.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 186: Some half-witted chook’s got off with Mac’s kid.
1960		‘Nino Culotta’ Cop This Lot 146: ‘What screamin’ chooks?’ ‘I dunno. Some housewives’ mob or somethin’.’.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 22: She wasn’t such a bad old chook.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 27/2: chook [...] woman.
1991		P. Carey Tax Inspector (1992) 62: She [...] gave a mocking little cursty. ‘You old chook,’ he said.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

3. (N.Z.) a fool.

1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 102: The silly old chook poured it into his gizzard instead of rubbing it on himself.
1980		Sydney Morn. Herald 20 Nov. 15/2: Such phrases as ‘like a silly chook’.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 27/2: chook [...] silly person.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2001		Sydney Morn. Herald 24 Mar. 35/7: Is this a case of a silly old chook [...] having egg on its face?

4. (N.Z. gay) a male prostitute who dressed as a schoolboy to encourage the paedophile trade [play on chicken n. (4d)].

2010

W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 72: [C]hook (an older worker who dressed in school uniform to pass himself off as younger trade),.

5. see bush chook under bush n.¹