chicken n.
1. as a woman.
(a) a young woman, esp. a prostitute (but note cite 1882); thus chicken-chaser, chicken-hustler, a womanizer; also attrib.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Old Law (1656) III i: What a spites this, that a man cannot perswade his wife to dye in any time with her good will, I have another bespoke already, though a piece of old beefe will serve to breakfast, yet a man would be glad of a Chicken to supper. | |
| Lady Alimony V iii: Alemoney! what means my Chicken by that? | |
| School of Venus (2004) 44: Dear Dove, my Heart, my very good child, my Chicken; all these are emblems of affection [...] relate to the dearness of a Child, and harmlessness of a Chicken. | |
| Humours of a Coffee-House 5 Dec. 71: Jupiter being Detriment with Virgo also, foretels a great Destruction of Men [...] many Chickens in Great Britain shall Die of the Pip. | |
| Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 171: Notwithstanding, sir, all my chicken has said, I am special company when she is not by. | |
| He Would be a Soldier VI ii: sir o.: Why, what the devil, man! aren’t you content with one of my chickens, but you must have my old hen in the bargain? la. o.: Old hen! sir o.: Yes, my Lady; when I had you first you were no pullet. | |
| Observer 4 Dec. 2: The flocks of chicken prostitutes which he observed before Somerset House. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sydney Gaz. 24 Apr.3/1: This chicken in the art of love [etc]. | |
| Satirist (London) 24 July 127/3: The hero of the picture [...] is represented pursuing a favourite chicken, in spite of the remonstrances of an old brood hen, that is flapping her wings after him. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Mar. 22 3/3: [They] was not game fowl but dung hill chickens who make a great fluttering when the talons of the Birds are upon them . | |
| Crim.-Con. Gaz. 13 Oct. 84/1: ‘Kate, my chicken, here’s precious bit of legislation’. | |
| Flash (NY) 4 Sept. n.p.: New York Wants to Know [...] How much George [...] gets a head for picking chickens at 72 Greene st [a brothel]. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Sept. 2/5: The celebrated Kitty Wright, of famous notoriety, her reputed husband, Lonsdale Wright, and one of her ‘chickens,’ commonly known by the pet soubriquet of Gipsey Maria, were brought before Messrs. Windeyer and Myles, the sitting magistrates. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Cork Examiner 13 Apr. 2/6: The house [...] was called ‘the Chicken Club’ [...] for they refused to receive prostitutes. | |
| Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: FRENCH INTRODUCING HOUSES. [...] The neighbourhood of Leicester Square [...] Covent Garden; [...] Fitzroy Square — are localities were these importers of French mutton, lamb, and chicken set up their shambles. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Feb. 3/2: Kitty Wright, the mother of the maids, and Miss Agnes Mackenzie, one of her pet chickens. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 8 Jan. 3/1: Mrs Catherine White and Miss Catherine Connell (birds of a feather, the one being a hen, the other a chicken). | |
| ‘The Jolly Tall Oysterman’ Champagne Charley Songster 40: His dear Leander, a young prairie chicken that lived on Staten Island. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 22 Nov. 15/2: There’s old uncle Bill Tovee, watching with delight somebody’s ‘chicken’ and some one’s ‘mouse’ slogging each other on the stage. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 3 July 7/4: A certain robust actor in Sydney is noted for being very fond of ‘chickens.’ If he doesn’t take care, he may fall ‘fowl’ of something else. | |
| Sydney Sl. Dict. 2/2: Chicken - a Girl (applied to the respectable class). | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 18 Nov. 2/2: [Lily Langtry] made haste to telegraph to the Prince [of Wales] that she wasn’t roasted, the poor tender little chicken. | |
| Sporting Times 13 Dec. 5/5: The exact meaning of the term ‘spring chicken’ is one which no poultry fancier — and we all fancy a little chicken sometimes — has been able to define. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 23 Dec. 1/5: I’m no lily-livered chicken, and I can manage by myself all right. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Sept. 1/5: A William-street snip has a cute eye for a chicken [and] he brightens up the dreary intervals of spruiking by ogling the girleens. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 20 May 1/1: Chicken just from school are allowed to solicit with impunity. | |
| A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 131: You’re a classy little chicken. | |
| Sun (Kalgoorlie, WA) 2 Aug. 1/1: They Say [...] That a Kanowna claim-workerf still chases chickens o’ nights. That the big burly brother of one of the children he accosted threatens to toss him down a shaft. | |
| Truth (Melbourne) 24 Jan. 11/4: [headline] Old Mandy And Her Twin Chickens [...] Pounced Upon By The Police [...] The old dame, Amanda McInnes, 57, was charged with keeping a house [...] frequented by prostitutes. | |
| Indoor Sports 14 May [synd. cartoon] Indoor Sports. Calling upon a reporter friend in a newspaper office and using the phone to call up your chicken friends. | |
| ‘On Account of a Lady’ in Taking the Count 130: Whitey’s doin’ you dirt with the chicken at the cash register. | |
| ‘If a Party Meet a Party’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 97: Do I have to let a lop-eared chicken-chaser like this run me all over town and get away with it? | |
| Salvation of Jemmy Sl. II i: This classy little chicken, that has driven me clean bugs, is no other than the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Best English. | |
| West Broadway 123: I personally myself used to be half convinced that Indians [on stage] was mostly blond chickens with feathers on their heads and very little else except the jewels their rich uncle had give them. | |
| Broadway Melody 98: Unusual for you, you chicken hustler. | |
| Circus of Dr Lao 90: Why didn’t you tell us she was going to be so goddam old? [...] Hell, I thought we was going to see a chicken. | |
| Come in Spinner (1960) 153: I don’t want nobody after me for chicken-stealing. | |
| Absolute Beginners 213: Brave girl! [...] Nice chicken! | |
| Long Beach Press-Telegram 14 Dec. 8: Art Unger is the man who sets parents right on what their youngsters mean when they refer to someone as a Poor Pearl (an unpopular girl), as a chicken (engaged girl), [...] or a squeep (a cross between a square and a creep). | |
| Farm (1968) 223: Lissen, Sonja, you ain’t a chicken no more. | |
| After Hours 22: More chicken than chick. | |
| Blow Your House Down 124: She can’t have been a chicken, by this time. | |
| (con. 1880) Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem 57: The death of such a chicken would cause no great stir in the world. | |
| I, Fatty 121: It was going to be a ‘chicken-and-champagne’ party, code for whores-and-hooch. |
(b) (US) young women considered collectively; thus sexual intercourse with one.
| Indianpolis Star 2 Aug. 5: Stage hands, who were anxious to learn the prevailing words of slang of the season, stood with their jaws agape during the afternoon when the chorus girls twisted the English language into hard knots for their benefit. [...] ‘We are not going to be chorus girls, dears, warblers, chickens, quails or squabs any longer. The correct dope this year is [...] quims.’. | |
| (con. 1910s) Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 71: He was fed up on the dago chickens around State Street. | |
 | ‘Pullet & Hen Blues’ 🎵 If you don’t believe I like chicken, baby, ooh well, let me catch your wing. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | Hills were Joyful Together (1966) 69: I’m an old fowl now, chicken is what you want. | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 185: Not many of our chickens had been around lately. | |
| Source Nov. 139: More blunts will be passed, more crowds will be pleased and more chickens will get plucked. |
(c) (US black) an unattractive (old) woman [on the bad = good model, the direct reverse of the white terms].
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 232: chicken, chickenhead 1. See bat [i.e. unattractive woman]. |
(d) (US black) an aggressive woman [on the bad = good model].
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 232: chicken, chickenhead [...] 2. Aggressive or belligerent female. |
2. the stereotype of the chicken as a cowardly creature.
(a) a timid creature, a coward.
| Nine Days’ Wonder in Arber Eng. Garner VII (1883) 37: It did him good to have ill words of a hoddy doddy! a hebber de hoy!, a chicken! a squib! | |
| Northward Hoe I i: I warrant her husband was forth a Towne all this while [...] whilst she was at home with her Plouers, Turkey, Chickens. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew. | |
| Beaux’ Strategem IV ii: gibbet: Well, my dear Bonny, you assure me that Scrub is a coward? boniface: A chicken, as the saying is. | |
| New Canting Dict. | |
| , , , | | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. |
| Joseph Andrews (1954) II 127: I am not afraid of dying with a blow or two neither: I am not such a chicken as that. | |
| Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 46: The first, who fancied John a chicken, Stood out, and promised him a licking. | |
| Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1889) 244: All characters are safe here [...] The cocks are considered to be game, and the hens belong to the same breed, but chickens cannot be admitted. | |
| Martin Chuzzlewit (1995) 651: Why, what a chicken you are! You are not afraid of being robbed, are you? | |
| Leicester Chron. 7 June 12/2: I didn’t think you were such a chicken. | |
| (con. 1875) Cruise of the ‘Cachalot’ 56: Although no chicken I nearly fainted too, from conflicting emotions of sympathy and impotent rage. | |
| Marvel XIV:358 2: This chicken wants to make out he’s a hull hornet’s nest of bad men from No Man’s Land. | |
| There Ain’t No Justice 125: If you want to have a fight [...] I’m on. I’m no chicken. | |
| West Side Story I i: The Jets are in gear, / Our cylinders are clickin’! / The Sharks’ll steer clear / ’Cause ev’ry Puerto Rican / ’S a lousy chicken! | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 226: Train Chicken was the latest up-to-datest, but I was a bit of a chicken. I could only go along past about three doorways and then I got the shakes and chickened out. | |
| Inside the Und. 129: Chicken [...] I wouldn’t let one grand slip like that, let alone the lot. | |
| Fields of Fire (1980) 221: Make your hat, Chicken-man! | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 425: A weakling, scaredy-cat, or chicken. | |
| (con. 1933) Big Blowdown (1999) 10: He knew he would do it, on account of being a chicken in front of Steve Mamakos. | |
| OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 chicken n. 1) coward 2) also game of dare where one is supposed to carry out some act of extreme stupidity. | |
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | IOL Cape Western News (SA) 14 Feb. 🌐 Bunch of chickens, all these so-called Freedom fighters and not one has the courage to stand up against Malena. |
(b) (also chicking) a weak or naïve person.
| Caleb Williams (1966) 243: You are not such a chicken as to suppose, if so be as you are innocent, that that will make your game altogether sure. | |
| Yellowplush Papers in Works III (1898) 364: Your no such chicking at play-writing, this being the forth. | |
| Sixteen-String Jack 118: ‘He is a hinnocent chicken we doubts,’ said Peter. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Feb. 12/2: When [...] tinned salmon is a flyin’ about, I want to cop my little portion. […] You and me’s no chickens at this game. | |
| Scarlet City 351: When you go flat-catching again, take your street whispers to the chickens in Rotten Row. | |
| London Embassy 150: Forgot our thermal underwear, didn’t we, chicken? |
(c) (US black) a sheepish, foolish grin.
| ‘Negro Sl. in Lincoln University’ in AS IX:4 288: chicken A more or less foolish, or sheepish, grin. |
(d) (US) cowardice.
| Teen-Age Gangs 33: Well, I didn’t show no chicken. I didn’t cringe none. | |
| Out of the Burning (1961) 205: They learn you that chicken in training school? |
(e) (orig. US teen) a contest of nerve in which two cars drive towards either each other or an obstacle, cliff edge etc – the loser being the driver who turns aside first; thus any form of foolish dare-devilry; also ext. to fig. use.
| ‘The Changes It Wrought’ in Brookhouser These Were Our Years (1959) 147: Youngsters had learned to play ‘chicken’ and hot-rod enthusiasts had taken to the road. | |
| Mad mag. Dec. 47: I love hot rods. My favorite relaxation is playing ‘chicken’ at 110 MPH. | |
| Sandusky Register (OH) 19 Nov. n.p.: Chicken and other such sport are for the birds. | |
| (con. 1944) Big Kiss-Off 169: These guys are apparently playing chicken. | |
| Don’t Look Back 167: Pasquel [...] was beginning to play a dangerous game of chicken with American baseball. | |
| Robbers (2001) 138: Neither [side] appears willing to compromise in this game of chicken. | |
| Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 191: [W]e start playin a li’l bit of a game of chicken. |
3. in the context of size.
(a) used as a direct address to a child or young woman.
| Bonduca V iv: Oh my chicken, / My dear boy. | |
| Women Pleased I ii: isabella: ’Twill stir a Saint, and I am but a woman, And by that tenure may— lopez: By no meanes Chicken, You know I love ye. | |
| Jealous Lovers IV ii: Deare chicken, / You shall not be so sad [...] by this kisse I’le make you merry. | |
| Rebellion II i: [to a man] Deare, when we are married Ile have such a one; Shall I not chicken? | |
| Marriage Broaker IV i: lyd.: Good friends do not abuse the Gentleman. serj.: We’le not abuse him chicken, for thy sake. | |
| Soldier’s Fortune III i: Why, chicken, where’s the remedy? | |
| Innocent Mistress II iii: Yet if you’ll be kind, my dear chicken, they shall wait for me in vain. | |
| Recruiting Officer III i: plume: Here, you chickens! rose: Who calls? plume: Come hither, pretty maid. | |
| Wife of Bath I i: They claim the Title, Chicken, but ods-my-life, we always dispute the Power. | |
| Drummer III i: Give me your hand, chicken. | |
| Boarding-School 38: Come along, my dear, dear, little Chicken. | |
| Polly Honeycombe 3: nurse: Elope! Chicken, what’s that? polly: Why, in the vulgar phrase, run away. | |
| Maid of Bath in Works (1799) II 239: Come hither, my chicken. | |
| Fire and Water! (1790) 22: Yes, my sweet chicken, I am in love with you up to the hilts. | |
| Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: [S]he has now turned to the pious dodge, and calls them her darters, her chickens, and kids. | |
| Bushrangers 421: Come, just be a little reasonable, my chicken. | |
| Day Book (Chicago) 23 Mar. 15/1: One of them ginks that thinks [...] all he is to do to make friends with a lady is to step up to her and [...] say, hello chickin [sic]. | |
| Long Wait (1954) 119: I will, chicken, I will. | |
| Burn 79: ‘Chicken, will you marry me,’ he says with casual good humour. | |
| Dead Butler Caper 62: Okay, chicken. | |
| (con. 1880) Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem 27: Why, little chicken, you must have performed a nice bit of business to become so dusty. | |
| PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 147: You take care of yourself, Chicken. |
(b) a young man, often as a direct address: my chicken; also as this chicken, self-referential.
| Confederacy II ii: But hast thou said a little something to her, Chicken, for an expiring Lover ha? | |
| ‘Johnny Brecking’s Wedding’ Poetical Works 135: Why do you not eat your meat, my chickens? | |
| Jack Randall’s Diary 71: Pearce was a native of Bristol, and was called the ‘Game Chicken,’ from his never being defeated. | |
| Real Life in London I 83: There was a most excellent mill at Moulsey Hurst on Thursday last, between the Gas-light man, who appears to be a game chicken, and a prime hammerer—he can give and take with any man—and Oliver—Gas beat him hollow, it was all Lombard-street to a china orange. | |
| High Life in London 27 Jan. 2/2: ‘I want you, Dan,’ continues Mercury. ‘More’s the pity, my chicken,’ replies Dan, ‘because I can’t attend to you’. | |
| Australian (Sydney) 11 July 4/2: [T]he report is current of a ‘game chicken’ — a hardy, chubby [...] Scot, ‘frae land of cakes and Johnny Groat’s’. | |
| Navy at Home II 110: Well, my game chicken, since nothing else will serve your turn, I’ll accommodate you! | |
| Picking from N.O. Picayune 116: You’re a hard chicken at all events [...] Blow me if I can get the hang of you. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 June 2/7: One young cock of the Fitzregal breed (a regular game chicken). | |
| in Tarheel Talk (1956) 265: I will burn his damd ass off with tar [...] tha cant sker this chicken. | |
| Gaslight and Daylight 57: I am no chicken (though not the gray-headed old fogey that insulting Squirrel presumes to call me). | |
| letter q. in Wiley Life of Jjohnny Reb (1943) 128: If there is another war this chicken wont be thar when they enlist. | |
| N.-Y. After Dark 91: He has never practised on ‘these Dutch machines, but he’s a tough chicken who has dodged peelers in new buildings and jumped railings a little too “once in a while” for him not to have a shake out of them’. | |
| Bushrangers 215: Look here, my chicken [...] if you but hurt a hair of those men’s heads, I’ll send a bullet through your body. | |
| (con. 1861–5) Hardtack and Coffee 52: A Marblehead man called his chum his ‘chicken’, more especially if the latter was a young soldier. | |
| Bird o’ Freedom 1 Jan. 1/4: Five bob [...] and dirt cheap, my chicken. | |
| Bushranger’s Sweetheart 35: Don’t you lose sight of this chicken when we land, if you are wise; for he’ll take care that you’re not diddled. | |
| Powers That Prey 198: I ain’t no chicken—passed my forty-eighth birthday last month. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 5 Jan. 9/5: Sez he:— ‘That was near a goner / For this chicken, I declare!’. | |
| Transcript Foster Inq. in Perverts by Official Order (1989) 46: ‘If a man was walking around and did not act real masculine, I would think he was a cocksucker.’ Another physician reportedly kept a ‘little short’ orderly as his ‘chicken’. | |
| Danville Bee (VA) 27 May 3/1: The U. S. Navy has a language or a ‘slanguage’ all its own. For instance [...] a young sailor [is] a ‘chicken.’. | |
| This Gutter Life 124: I’m no chicken, I’m over thirty. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | ‘Old Man’s Story’ A Man and His Wife (1944) 81: He was no chicken, in his fifties perhaps. | |
| Hide My Eyes (1960) 79: He’s no chicken. An elderly feller called Bullard. Been here years. | |
| There Must Be a Pony! 243: Hey, chicken, you ever hear of Jelly Roll? | |
| Fabulosa 290/2: chicken 1. an attractive man. |
(c) a pint pot, the smaller container of the hen and chickens under hen n.
| (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor I 256/1: The hens and chickens of the roguish low lodging-houses are the publican’ pewter measures; the bigger vessels are ‘hens;’ the smaller are ‘chickens’. |
4. as an image of sexual vulnerability and/or youth [note 19C US milit. jargon chicken, a close friend or young ‘buddy’].
(a) an underage girl, in a sexual context.
| implied in chicken man | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 12 June 4/2: Cecil R. don’t you think that Ruby D. is a bit of a chicken? Why not have a try for something a bit older? | |
| Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl. | |
| Kowloon Tong 22: ‘You want a chicken,’ the Mamasan would say to Bunt. |
(b) anything young, small or insignificant.
| Bk of Sports 331: During the second day — John Webber, of Exeter, and Holmes, literally a couple of chickens, presented themselves. The former [...] scarcely eighteen years of age. | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |
| Picked Up in the Streets 289: Well, you ain’t a chicken. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 16: Chicken, a term applied to anything young. |
(c) a novice, esp. a young boxer.
| How the Poor Live 79: The friendly bouts with the gloves between local ‘chickens’ and ‘novices’ [...] were once regular Saturday night amusements. | |
| in Journal Hist. Sexuality V 593: Fourteen young men were invited [...] with the premise that they would have the opportunity of meeting some of the prominent ‘queers,’ [...] and the further attraction that some ‘chickens’ as the new recruits in the vice are called, would be available. | |
| Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: chicken . . . extremely young recruit. |
(d) (gay) an underage boy, or such boys considered collectively.
| Congressional Record 21 Apr. 3637: I saw an admirable illustration of the affection which a sailor will lavish on a ship’s boy to whom he takes a fancy, and makes his ‘chicken’ as the phrase is [DA]. | |
| L.A. Times 14 Nov. II (letter reprinted from Sacramento Bee ) 8: There is the pitiable, the most outrageous, part of all – the jaded appetites of these loathsome degenerates, after a time, are not satisfied with each other; they demand young boys – ‘chickens,’ they call them – and they will stoop to almost anything to satisfy their desire in this regard. | |
| (ref. to late 19C) Amer. Madam (1981) 237: Big Nellie said he didn’t mind. ‘The chicken was so scared he was no use at all and was just a wet blanket on the party. He’s too fucking normal.’. | |
| Cloven Hoof 65: ‘Chicken’: a very young boy. | |
| et al. Gay Girl’s Guide 5: chicken: Adolescent, homosexual or not. | |
| Gaedicker’s Sodom-on-the-Hudson 5: It is also one of the best places [...] for non-professional chicken. | |
| Naked Lunch (1968) 216: Let your hair down, chicken. You’ll feel better. | |
| Homosexuality & Citizenship in Florida 13: It is this type of youth who ‘goes out for chickens’ by becoming an active recruiter of very young boys. | |
| Crime in S. Afr. 106: An ‘Angelina’, a ‘chicken’, or a ‘lamb’ is a boy who travels around with an older tramp for homosexual purposes. | |
| Mother Camp 27: The segregation is roughly by decades: ‘chickens’ under twenty; [...] and ‘aunties,’ forty and over. | |
| Faggots 151: Winnie fucks this virgin chicken. | |
| In La-La Land We Trust (1999) 189: ‘So, tell me, my friend.’ ‘Chicken. I like chicken,’ Whistler said. ‘How much you want to spend?’. | |
| Sinaloa Story 224: A club called Chicken in a Basket [...] where older gentlemen went to meet young boys. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 129: Peavy runs male prostitutes. Peavy sells choice chicken. | |
| Gayle 61/2: chicken n. underage youth, especially as sexual prey. | |
| ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 71: A chicken is an underage youth. | |
| Fabulosa 290/2: chicken [...] 2. a young boy. | |
| Boy from County Hell 123: ‘I ain’t into chicken’. |
(e) attrib. use of sense 4d.
| Oz 3 9/2: The merchants put up chicken posters saying, ‘For your own safety, get off the street.’. |
(f) (US Und.) a kidnap victim.
| We Are the Public Enemies 132: Go around in circles so the chicken won’t know where you are takin’ him. | |
| , | | DAS. |
(g) a child who is used for paedophiliac sexual exploitation.
| Maledicta IX 155: Young chits, fresh meat and fresh fish [...] pretties and chicken (tender white meat) are chased by rapacious chicken-hawks. | |
| Indep. 17 Sept. 1: Turner was known to the other men as the ‘chickenmaster’ for his ability to procure children – referred to as ‘chickens’ by paedophiles. | |
| ‘Chickenhawk’ at www.cultdeadcow.com 🌐 I’d been hunting chicken at the New York Port Authority for about six months when I picked up Karen, fresh off the bus from Chicago, a runaway from one of the rich ’burbs that circle that city. |
(h) a young lesbian.
| Twilight Girls n.p.: Your little Edie is a Mary Jane — a chicken for some dyke. | |
| Queer Sl. in the Gay 90s 🌐 Chicken – Anyone who is under the legal age of consent. Young gays & lesbians. |
(i) a young heterosexual male prostitute, servicing only women.
| Chicken (2003) 30: Replace happiness with pleasure. The whole thing is great training for being a chicken. [Ibid.] 32: Many many many times in my chicken career, women want me naked while they’re fully clothed. |
5. (US) a thing, a phenomenon.
| Fitzgerald and Hopkins 141: Them’s the queerest chickens I ever seed in my life [DA]. |
6. (US) a fighting cock.
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7/1: The chickens are matched by pounds and ounces [and] [t]here is always a stake on each battle. |
7. (US) bacon, sausages.
| Log Of A Cowboy 123: As he helped himself to a third piece of ‘fried chicken’ (bacon). | |
| Dict. Service Sl. n.p.: Army chicken . . . beans and frankfurters. |
8. a person, no cowardice is implied.
| Long Good-Bye 38: ‘I’ll use the phone,’ Green said. ‘But I know what answer I’ll get. You’re a sick chicken, Marlowe. A very sick chicken.’. |
9. (US drugs) a kilo of (crack) cocaine [play on bird n.7 (1)].
| ‘Quarter Block’ 🎵 Brand new chickens all day like I’m Chick-Fil-A. |
10. see chickenshit n. (5)
Sexual contexts
In compounds
see separate entry.
1. (US) a womanizer; thus chicken-chasing.
| Bennington Banner (VT) 6 Oct. 1/8: A circumstance which left your humble servant with the appellation os [sic] ‘chicken chaser’. | |
| Galveston Dly News (TX) 26 Feb. 15/5: Recorder’s Court [...] Maggie Stevens, abusing and insulting; continued. Lou Campbell, abusing and insulting; $10 and cost. Joe, alas Chicken Chaser, burglary; dismissed. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 3 Apr. 1/1: The hoary chicken-chaser’s proposal to one muscular hash-heaver procured him a biff on the point. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 22 Jan. 1/1: A Fremantle magnate’s fondness for chicken-chasing will yet land him in trouble. | |
| Truth (Melbourne) 31 Jan. 2/4: Chicken-Chaser Holt Who Makes a Meet with ‘Sweet Fourteen’ Is Biffed, Jugged and Fined. | |
| Balance 92: ‘Who is this Thompson?’ asks Sammy. [...] ‘Looks like a chicken chaser to me’. | |
| ‘The Dizzy Dumb-Bell’ in Top Notch 1 Aug. 🌐 Perry couldn’t have been more of a chicken chaser if he had been a clerk for a poultry dealer. | |
| Amusement Park 183: Lowenstein had seen the boy advance slowly to the status of a Park ‘sharpie,’ had observed his success as a chicken-chaser. | |
| Total Recoil 46: Chico Marx got his nickname from the old slang phrase ‘chicken chaser.’ In each new town, he leaped from the train before it stopped and was in the hotel lobby holding the hand of the girl behind the cigar counter before the others could get a look-in. | |
| (con. 1930s) Constant Circle 63: As often as not, he prefaced these introductions with a jocular warning— ‘You have to watch him, he's a garter snapper,’ or ‘Be careful, he’s a leg pincher,’ or ‘He’s a charming fellow but a chicken-chaser’. |
2. an older woman who purses young men as lovers.
| Harper’s Mag. 57 35/3: Is the equivalent of that expressive term ‘chicken chaser’ ever applied to women of the same class? It is quite true that every now and again a middle-aged or even elderly woman makes a fool of herself by marrying a young man. |
(US) one who pursues underage boys, thus chicken-chaser.
| For Money or Love: Boy Prostitution in America 98: There is another area in the chicken-literary business that deserves attention: the paperback book. [...] They’re readily available by the hundreds in any adult bookstore. Chicken Chaser, Wynter's Tail [etc.]. | |
| Rape of a Nation 143: Scores of pornographic paperbacks flood the market with such titles as Chicken Chaser, Wynter's Tail, Jock Stud, Buddy's Butt, [...] Door-to-Door Chicken, Meat My Buddy, The Child Watchers, [etc.]. | |
| ‘Where I Get My Weird Shit’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 36: My dad thinks he’s a fruit [...] a chicken-chasing Charlie. |
11. (N.Z. prison) a prison’s segregation or protection area.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 41/2: chicken coop, the (also chicken run) n. the segregation, or protection, section of a prison. |
1. (US black) an attractive young woman.
| Really the Blues 78: When we saw one of our buddies blowing his top over some chicken dinner we pitied him. |
2. (US gay) a young or underage boy, in the context of his being the subject of fellatio; thus have a chicken dinner, to fellate an underage boy.
| Queens’ Vernacular. | |
| Gay (S)language. |
a womanizer.
| Prelude to a Certain Midnight 69: Chicken Eyes had a weakness for a young lady called Cigarette. |
1. a womanizer.
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 97: I was acquainted with all the chorus squabs and stars — I was a chicken fancier. | |
| Goodwin’s Wkly (Salt Lake City, UT) 9 Mar. 4/2: As a corporation lawyer and a ‘chicken fancier’ he [...] could hardly be persuaded [...] to desert his prize winners here for the brighter plumed birds of the Capital. |
2. (US) one who pursues girls under the age of consent.
| Silk Hat Harry’s Divorce Suit 21 Aug. [synd. cartoon strip] I see they put 13 chicken fanciers in the cooler yesterday — ha-ha [...] They won’t nab me. |
3. (also chicken-freak) a male homosexual paedophile.
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases 42: chicken fancier (Sl.) A male Homosexual who prefers a very young love partner. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular 45: chicken-freak elderly man with a voracious appetite for young roosters; one with a psychotic need for young men; frequently, he can’t experience orgasm with any save young men. It is widely believed that chicken freaks were seduced into committing homosexual acts when they were children. |
(N.Z. gay) underage boys.
| ||
| ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 72: Paedophiles have often called under¬age boys chicken feed . |
see separate entry.
a dance frequented by young girls and boys, esp. young prostuttes and their pimps.
| Old Bailey Experience 313: [F]emales, but mere children to view [...] tawdrily decked out with baldrick and tiara, dancing with all the airs of a Bona Roba, with their fancy men [...] These assemblies are flashly designated cock and hen, chicken hops, or the freaks of the swell kids. |
(US) a womanizer, a lady-killer.
| Dayton Dly News (OH) 17/3: An enterprising eastern firm set out to fatten its pocketbook at the expense of the street corner masher by getting out a badge marked —‘chicken inspector’. | |
| Hist. of 63rd Infantry LXIII:4 154: The Baldwin brothers spent most of their off-guard time in the sardine cannery; it was impossible to determine whether they were sardine packers or chicken inspectors – or both. | |
| New Yorker 28 Apr. 16/2: Readers of mature years will remember Chicken Inspector badges. | |
| Life II Apr. 33: [The] chicken inspector’s badge [...] goes with 23-skidoo and oh-you-kid. | |
| (con. c.1900) King Blood (1989) 205: Don’ kid me, kid. I a chicken inspector. | |
| (con. 1920s) Playboy’s Bk of Forbidden Words 66: Various witty fellows wore lapel buttons saying ‘Chicken inspector’. | |
| Jewish World Rev. 12 Jan. 🌐 Twenty-three skidoo, oh, you kid, banana oil, chicken inspector, and hot cha cha date back to the 1920s and are phrases that have lost virtually all meaning for anyone under the age of, say, eighty. | |
| at Caroline’s Comedy Club 6 Dec. [transcript] When I was in high school, back in the ’20s – oh did we have a good time, we would just Charleston all day long [dances]. You bet we would. Chicken inspector, I’ll say she is! Yowzah Yowzah! We’d get in the jalopy and just... drink hooch. |
1. a paedophile.
| Eng. Spy I 202: Sir – , the chicken man, / With pimp -a-t in the van, / The Spy of an old Spy; / Who beat up for recruits in town, / ’Mong little girls, in chequer’d gown, / Of ages rather shy. [note] The redoubtable general’s penchant for little girls has obtained him the tender appellation of the chicken man. |
2. (Aus. prison) one who has been jailed for bestiality.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Chicken man. A person in prison for bestiality. |
(US gay) the urge to have sex with underage boys.
| Queens’ Vernacular. | |
| Maledicta III:2 222: An egg-sucker chasing youths and his own youth is scorned for disgracing himself, embarrassing others, suffering from chicken pox. |
(US gay) an older homosexual man who prefers sex with teenage boys.
| Lavender Lex. n.p.: chicken queen: a homosexual who shows interest in youthful males and seeks them out to engage, in the receptor role, as sex partners. | |
| Tales of the City (1984) 102: I hope you’re not a chicken queen. I’m twenty-six. | |
| Dict. of Invective (1991) 79: This kind of chicken, often preyed upon by older men known as chicken hawks or chicken queens, goes back to the nineteenth century. | |
| Alt. Eng. Dict. 🌐 chicken queen gay male who is attracted to underage males homosexuals. |
a brothel.
| Banjo 20: I like the looks of a chicken-house. | |
| Lowspeak. | |
| (con. 1940s–60s) Straight from the Fridge Dad. |
(US gay) a male homosexual who has been placed in charge of underage boys, e.g. a scoutmaster or choirmaster.
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
In phrases
(US gay) a young sailor.
| Queens’ Vernacular. |
(Aus.) the pursuit, by an older woman, of young(er) boys.
| Sport (Adelaide) 17 Jan. 7/4: Alice W. ought to be had up for chicken stealing. Clarry is too young for her . |
(N.Z. gay) an underage male prostitute who is unable to resist police interrogation and betrays the names of his adult contacts.
| ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 72: [A] very young male prostitute who might be picked up by the police and pressured into revealing names or details of his clients was called a chicken trap . |
Pertaining to cowardice or weakness
In compounds
(US) a contest of nerves.
| ‘Borough of Cemeteries’ in Sailor Off The Bremen Stories 282: ‘Get into yer cab, Angelo. I’ll drive mine, we’ll have a chicken fight.’ [...] The two cars spurted at each other, head-on. As they hit, glass broke and a fender flew off and the cars skidded wildly. |
(US) a coward.
| Hunter-Naturalist 85: You d—n pack of chicken-gizzards, niggers! [HDAS]. |
(US) cowardly.
| Sun. News (NY) 4 Sept. 38/1: ‘I c’d count on the fingers o’ oine hand the number o’ times that chicken-gutted Hayman’s dropped in for a pint’. | |
| Web of the City (1983) 160: They had never been chickengut while he was top man. | |
| et al. Ride the High Country [film script] You’re too chicken-gutted to finish this thing out in the open [HDAS]. | |
| in Sun (London) n.p.: Our gallant European allies are a bunch of chicken-gutted, lily-livered, double-crossing, back-stabbing cowards. And that’s only for openers. | |
| ‘If I Were a Taliban’ at InstaPundit 13 Nov. 🌐 If I were a Taliban; / I wouldn’t have to fight hard / Hell-with-Ramadan-just-run-before-your-home-becomes-a-slum, / If I were a chicken-gutted-bitch, / Lady-beating-wussy-Taliban. |
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
In phrases
see chicken (out) v.
1. to indulge in dangerous games, usu. to drive two cars straight at each other or in parallel towards a hazard (e.g. clifftop) and see who backs down first (but see cite 1950), thus chicken player.
| Dunkirk Eve. Obs. (NY) 12 Apr. 7/4: Now, what in the name of something or other would cause a group of youngsters to play ‘chicken’ is beyond me [...] to drive at breakneck speed then release the grip on the steering wheel. The first one to wilt and grab the wheel again is chicken. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 12 May 23/2-3: Not all ‘chicken’ players use the technique of driving headlong at an oncoming car [...] ‘What they were doing [...] was forcing me to “play chicken”’ with the oncoming car’. | |
| Shook-Up Generation (1961) 31: They sometimes play ‘chicken’ – the suicidal game in which two drivers race their cars head-on at each other. | |
| Bunch of Ratbags 226: They never actually caught us playing chicken because we didn’t play it near the station. | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | Go-Boy! 124: Playing chicken behind the slaughterhouse with abandoned electric street cars. | |
| Secrets of Harry Bright (1986) 32: The young cop played chicken with the approaching headlights, veering at the last second. | |
| Rogue Warrior (1993) 353: He careered through back alleys, slalomed the wrong way up one-way streets, and doubled back to play ‘chicken’ with his pursuers. | |
| Guardian Weekend 5 Feb. 78: Lorry drivers like to play chicken with their wing mirrors, and pass each other at 60mph on country lanes with a good inch to spare between them. | |
| A Steady Rain I iii: It was [...] crazier the way he was driving, up on sidewalks, playing chicken with pedestrians. | |
| BBC World Radio 25 July 🌐 People might say you’re playing chicken with the world economy. |
2. to challenge another person by attempting to see who ‘cracks’ first in a given situation.
| No Red Ribbons (1968) 156: You’re playing chicken, all of you. | |
| Blood Brothers 94: The phone rang, and the two divisions played chicken to see who was going to pick it up. | |
| A-Team 2 (1984) 111: I think we’ll play a little game of chicken on the bridge ... | |
| Deadmeat 271: He loved to play chicken and this was the perfect opportunity to test my nerve. | |
| Guardian 19 Aug. 1: This is now a game of chicken with the Beeb – the only way they will shift is if they see the screw tightening. | |
| ‘Rough Company’ in Crimes in Southern Indiana [ebook] ‘Ever time Cooley got to drinkin’ [...] he’d get some kinda yellow-jacket meanness in him. Wanna play chicken. I wasn’t scared’. |
3. (US black) to intrude on another (man’s) sexual advances [fig. use of sense 1, i.e. the intruder ‘dares’ his rival].
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 135: He wants to try to play chicken an’ steal somebody’s old lady. |
Other uses
In compounds
1. any small, cramped place or vehicle.
| [ | | ‘Trip to France’ in Jim Crow’s Song-Book 14: And a passage dere I took, / In a ting dey call a diligence, / Looks like a chicken coop]. |
| ‘Tobin’s Palm’ in Four Million (1915) 4: We went into the enchanted chicken coop, which was filled with mysterious red cloths, and pictures of hands. | |
| Diary of a Doughboy 4 Sept. 🌐 The little chicken-coop box cars with their signs ‘40 Hommes and 8 Chevaux,’ looked more like a cattle train. |
2. (US Und.) a women’s prison.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
3. a police car or patrol wagon.
| in DARE. |
4. an outside lavatory.
| in DARE. |
5. (US gay) any place filled with attractive young men, e.g. a basketball game.
| Queens’ Vernacular 45: chicken-coop any place filled to the brim with nubile young men; basketball games, etc. |
In phrases
see under dead adj.
1. a phr. describing someone, often a woman, who is no longer young (or attractive).
| ‘Stella’s Birthday’ in Works (1812) 189: Pursue your trade of scandel-picking, Your hints that Stella is no chicken. | |
| Polite Conversation 21: I swear she’s no Chicken; she’s on the wrong Side of thirty if she be a Day. | |
| Joseph Andrews (1954) II 145: Adams, who was no chicken, and could bear a drubbing as well as any boxing champion in the universe, lay still. | |
| Humphrey Clinker (1925) II 167: The knight swore he was no such chicken, but a tough old rogue. | |
| Mornings in Bow St. 111: ‘Of what age is the lady?’ asked the magistrate. ‘Your vorship, she’ll be forty-three come a fortnight a’ter next Bar’t'Iemy fair.’ ‘Then she is no chicken!’. | |
| Satirist (London) 3 Mar.495/1: ‘ln the early part of his political career, the Right Honourable gentleman acquired the appellation of ‘the chicken.’ At rate he is no chicken now." No, indeed; he is a ‘hearty old cock’. | |
| Paris Sketch Book I 143: Well, Marlborough was no chicken when he began to show his genius. | |
| Gaslight and Daylight 57: I am no chicken (though not the gray-headed old fogey that insulting Squirrel presumes to call me.). | |
| Quite Alone III 81: She is no chicken, and that’s a fact. | |
| ‘English Sl.’ in Eve. Telegram (N.Y.) 9 Dec. 1/5: Let us present a few specimens:– [...] ‘He’s no chicken.’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 30 Oct. 4/1: When a young man speaks of a very pretty girl he says she is a duck; but a woman is apt to say of a very pretty girl, she is no chicken. | |
| letter 10 Jan. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 249: That buck was no chicken, for the spikes on his antlers counted off seven years. | |
| Cyril 29: I don’t think that Miss Viera is any chicken. | |
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 2 Feb. 4/5: ‘Oh! she’s no spring chicken,’ he replied. | |
| Owingsville Outlook (KY) 3 Sept. 4/8: She’s no chicken; she’s on the wrong side of thirty if she’s a day. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 4/3: F.N. said he could eat M.W. Get your teeth sharpened, mate, she's no chicken. | |
| Of Human Bondage (1991) 140: ‘She’s no chicken, Louisa,’ he said. ‘She was nearly grown up when we were in Lincolnshire, and that was twenty years ago.’. | |
| [perf. Marie Lloyd] Good Old Iron 🎵 Still I’m no chicken, but everything's complete. | |
| Ulysses 724: He was on the cards this morning when I laid out the deck union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a stranger either. | |
| Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 568: All college slang, of course, borrows heavily from the general slang vocabulary. For example, chicken, which designated a young girl on most American campuses until 1921 or thereabout, was used by Steele in 1711, and, in the form of no chicken, by Swift in 1720. | |
| Tarry Flynn (1965) 81: Mind you, Mary is no chicken. Only the day I was thinking that she’s within a kick of the arse of thirty. | |
| Tarry Flynn (1965) 81: And mind you, Mary is no chicken. | |
| Tough Guy [ebook] Georgie was no chicken no more, and neither was he. The pair of them’d be hitting thirty in another year or two. | |
| America’s Homosexual Underground 117: As for sex, I’m no chicken, but I’m still going strong. | |
| in Hellhole 149: This broad, Birdie, she is no chicken having had three different sets of kids by three fathers. | |
| Down All the Days 139: She was no chicken ... thirty if she was a day. | |
| Mud Crab Boogie (2013) [ebook] Pat was no spring chicken, loved a drink, was always in a sour mood — and looked it. | |
| Finders Keepers (2016) 135: He’s sixty-six, no spring chicken. |
2. (Aus.) being of substantial size.
| Truth (Sydney) 17 Feb. 6/2: Allsopp’s colt by Gibraltar [...] is another giant, and Forte by the same sire is no chicken. |
(Aus.) a general term of approbation.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Oct. 48/1: ‘My daddy!’ said the boy patting Chiller’s scrubby face. / ‘That’s the chicken!’ cried the bigamist cheerfully. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(US black) anything second-rate, inferior, cheap and unattractive.
| (ref. to late 1950s) Chickenbone Special 82: ‘That’s this old “Chickenbone Special” for you.’ [...] The name is thought to have originated back in the late fifties among a group of black graduate students at Temple University in Philadelphia ... [R]eminiscing about life in the Carolinas, they discovered that most if [sic] them had come north at one time or another on the same train. Further, they remembered the lunches packed by anxious mothers for sons and daughters who could not afford the prices charged on railroad dining cars. Invariably, those lunches contained at least one piece of fried chicken, as they still do. | |
| Juba to Jive 90: chickenbone special n. (1950s’) metaphor for anything that is inferior, but originally it referred to a bag of greasy fried chicken southern Negroes took on train trips probably because food from the diner was unavailable to them. | |
| Wall Street Journal 21 May 🌐 For decades, of course, New York looked pretty good to black Southerners. In the first half of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands, especially from Georgia and the Carolinas, packed their worldly goods and box lunches and rode the Chickenbone Special out of the Jim Crow South, following the drinking gourd to seek a better life in Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. |
see separate entries.
of a woman, having very small breasts.
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Chicken Breasted said of a Woman with scarce any breasts. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn, 3rd edn). | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
see separate entry.
(US black) nothing, no matter, forget it; used in response to the query what’s up?
| (con. 1920s–30s) Youngblood (1956) 121: ‘What?’ ‘Chicken butt — Go behind and lick it up.’. | |
| in Black Lang. in Major (1994). |
(US black) bootleg bourbon.
| [ | | Nevada State Jrnl (Reno, NV) 29 Jan. 4/3: Small sample bottles of ‘Chicken Cock Whiskey’ [and] a large framed painting of the famous chicken cocks from which the name is taken]. |
| (con. 1920s–30s) Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 11: They sold that baaad bourbon called chicken cock. |
1. a preacher, esp. an unprofessional, part-time lay preacher; thus chicken-eating adj.
| [ | | Raleigh Christian Advocate (NC) 13 May 1/3: The opinion generally obtains that preacehrs are great ‘chicken eaters;’ and a preacher that wears a moustache and don’t eat chicken is [...] an oddity]. |
| Pittsburgh Wkly Gaz. (PA) 27 May 2/2: Roost high, oh ye feathered beasts, for the chicken eaters are come to the great city. Guard well the back doors to your gin-mills, oh ye dispensers of benzine, for the throats that are enveloped in white chokers are often athirst. Look well to your foor-footed beasts, for horse flesh hath ever a powerful attraction for the Methodist deacon . | |
| Wkly Caucasian (Lexington, MS) 1 Aug. 1/7: A host of reverend chicken-eaters have signified their intention to brush up their seedy stove-pipes and attend. | |
| Morn. News (Wilmington, DE) 18 Mar. 3/3: When the members of the M.E. Conference [...] were coming out of church the other day, a crowd of boys greeted them with shouts of ‘Chicken eaters! Here comes the chicken eaters!’. | |
| Richmond Planet (VA) 26 Dec. 3/3: Having been talked to [...] by the chicken-eater preachers of the 5th Church. | |
| Anaconda Standard (MT) 22 Feb. 9/2: He alluded to the ‘little, half-starved, chicken-eating preacher’ who never had his salary fully paid. | |
| Winnipeg Trib. (Manitoba) 5 Oct. 8/3: ‘I’d rather be the humblest little rabbit-eyed, bow-legged, chicken-eating preacher than the greatest actor that ever lived’. | |
| Harder Collection n.p.: Chicken-eater [...] A preacher [DARE]. | |
| (con. WWII) And Then We Heard The Thunder (1964) 158: I can see you ain’ gon be no doctor or lawyer or chicken-eating preacher. | |
| in DARE. | |
| Black Talk 78: chicken eater A preacher; a derogatory term. Traditionally the preacher ate Sunday dinner at a church member’s house and was given his pick of the chicken, with the children eating last, whatever was left. They expressed their resentment by calling the preacher a chicken eater. |
2. a Methodist.
| Wkly Caucasian (Lexington, MS) 27 Sept. 3/4: The illustrious chicken-eaters of the Southern Methodist Conference. | |
| in DARE. |
see separate entry.
(US) a cockfight, thus chicken fighting, the sport.
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 22 Dec. 7/1: Before the war [...] men of means and leisure [...] patronized the sport of chicken fighting [...] There is a Circuit Judge In Tennessee who will call upon a brother lawyer to hold court for him while he enjoys a chicken fight. |
(US) trifles, small possessions.
| [ | | Milwaukee Sentinel (WI) 20 Aug. 2/4: Arkansas Tavern Rates [...] ‘Four bitts for a common dinner of bacon, greens, bread and meat —six bitts if we add chicken ‘fixins’’]. |
| Maumee City Exp. (OH) 28 Mar. 1/5: The youthful Queen and her consort are in a fair way to have their meal out of the very chicken fixings of human existence. | |
| Pickings from N.O. Picayune (1847) 48: I heerd you’d give us two dollars a day and throw in the ‘chicken fixins’ and ‘corn doins’ . | |
| Tempest and Sunshine 30: We don’t have any of your chicken fixings nor little three-cornered handkerchiefs laid out at each plate. | |
| Adventures of Big-Foot Wallace 284: The Mexican war had ended, and that chap with the gold epaulets on his shoulders and the ‘chicken-fixings’ on his coat-sleeves had mustered us out of the service and paid us off. | |
| Sthrn Stand (McMinnville, TN) 23 Apr. 1/3: Send a two cent stamp to Richard H. Young, Westboro, Mass., for ‘Chicken Fixings’. It will make you smile. | |
| ‘Rural Locutions of Maine and Northern New Hampshire’ in DN IV:ii 70: chicken-fixin’s, n. Anything fancy, in food, dress or otherwise. ‘With all the little chicken-fixin’s on.’. |
(US) a general derog. term; often intensified as bald-headed chicken-fucker.
| joke in Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1972) I 207: Suddenly two bald-headed men enter, and the parrot says, ‘You two chicken-fuckers come out in the hen-house with me’. | |
| Devil’s Rejects [film script] clevon: Did you hear what he called me, Boss? I ain’t no chicken fucker! ... darrell: I’m not callin’ you a chicken fucker. | |
| posting at www.firedoglake.com 11 May 🌐 Fucking DO Something!!! Walk out! Shut down the Senate! Give a speech calling Bush a bald-headed chicken-fucker!! T-P the Whitehouse! But for the love of Yahweh, DO SOMETHING!!! |
bandy-legged.
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Chicken-hamed, persons whose legs and thighs are bent or archward outwards. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Chicken-hammed [etc; as cit. 1785]. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1796]. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
(also chicken) a version of the dice gambling game hazard played for small stakes only, i.e. silver coins rather than gold.
| Life and Adventures of Samuel Hayward 105: Driven from the patrician subscription gaming-rooms, he was content to push in among the seedy coves and risk his half bull at chicken-hazard*. [*A silver table, i.e. where persons can play for shillings or half-crowns]. | |
| Satirist (London) 11 367/1: The extent of his lordship’s knowledge, of the play- table amounts to his having once seen the game of hazard in operation at Crockford's, when he asked [...] the name of it. ‘Chicken,’ was the reply. | |
| Punch 28 May 220/1: Lord De Grey’s dismissal [...] of the clerks in the Accountant-General’s Office for playing at chicken-hazard during office-hours. |
(US) one’s fig. intestines, innards, i.e. the ‘stuffing’, the ‘daylights’; usu. in phr. kick/knock the chicken-hockey out of.
| Snakes (1971) 28: I’ll smack the chicken hockey outta you. |
(US) a chicken thief; thus any form of petty thief and by ext., a corrupt or incompetent individual.
| Clarkesville Chron. (TN) 24 Apr. 1/8: The ‘sacred school fund’ [was] squandered on the magificent combination of horse-thieves, chicken lifters and highway-men. | |
| Fayetteville Obs. (TN) 13 May 2/2: There never was a more inexcusable enqactment than the one passed by the leigslature enrolling Brownlow’s chicken-lifters. The ostensible purpose was to punish the Kluklux, but not an attempt, even, has been made to arest one. | |
| Dly Phoenix (Columbia, SC) 9 July 4/4: Savannah boasts the champion chicken-lifter of the age. He was arrested last week with sixty-eight chickens — eighteen pairs in a bag and sixteen pairs on a string. | |
| Stark Co. Democrat (Canton, OH) 10 Jan. 8/2: Dar’s a warm place jess beyant heah fer de manigers ob de Freedman bank an’ chicken-lifters ginrully. | |
| Around the World on a Bicycle 150: Unregenerate chicken-lifter though he doubtless be, would scarce condescend to touch his tattered tile even to the Emperor of Austria. | |
| Brenham Wkly Banner (TX) 20 Mar. 5/3: Mr Schuerenberg was eight chickens short [...] The thief or thieves were uinusually bold, and added to their crime of chicken-lifting an attempted burglary. | |
| Pink Marsh (1963) 132: Who was ’at cullud rascal ’at tried to make me out chick-lifteh? | |
| Chariton Courier (Keytesville, MO) 9 May 5/3: . | |
| Girl of the Golden West 323: The Sheriff of Manzaneta County [...] raised his steely grey eyes inquisitorially to Nick’s who, with a hostile stare at the Australian, emitted: ‘Chicken lifter!’. | |
| Corpus Christi Caller (TX) 3 Oct. 6/3: Chicken-Lifters [...] Last night the thief or thieves carried off the quartette of hens. |
(US black) a white person.
| Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 chicken lips Definition: a Caucasian. Derogatory. Example: Hey chicken lips, what you doin drivin yo raggedy ass Pinto on my block? |
(US) spending money, small change.
| ‘Navy Sl.’ in DN IV: ii 150: chicken money, n. The pay of an enlisted man when retired. |
a merchant who has returned from India with a moderate rather than a magnificent fortune.
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Chicken Nabob. One returned from the East India Company’s service with but a moderate Fortune of fifty or sixty thousand Pounds. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn, 3rd edn) n.p.: Chicken Nabob. One returned from the East Indies with but a moderate fortune of fifty or sixty thousand pounds, a diminutive nabob: a term borrowed from the chicken turtle. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
(US) to move one’s head rapidly from side to side.
| Florida Roadkill 191: The two began to chicken-neck as they passed the Lantana exit. |
see separate entry.
(US) an unprofessional, part-time lay preacher.
| Anaconda Standard (MT) 28 Apr. 10/3: he would not spoil his hands by mixing with that ‘chicken preacher’. | |
| Crazy Kill 20: If you want to put up with this chicken-season preacher’s lying, you can. | |
| Run Man Run (1969) 97: He was a chicken-season preacher [...] He only preached when the chickens were fat. | |
| (con. 1890s–1940s) Juba to Jive 90: Chicken preacher. |
see separate entries.
see separate entries.
(US) sexual intercourse with a chicken.
| Walk on the Wild Side 253: Feathers had been snatched red-handed in the act of chicken spanking. |
(US Und.) the act of stealing a vulnerable person’s bag or purse.
| Central Sl. 15: chicken swoop A purse snatch. A grand theft person, usually of an elderly lady, by a teenaged thug / ‘Devon been doin’ the chicken swoops over on 21st street’. |
1. (Aus., also chicken snatcher) a petty thief.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 12 Sept. 17/1: A wealthy resident left the handsome manager the surrounding estate and a fortune for the use of deadbeats, paupers, swaggies and sundowners of every description. He bequeathed his possessions to the unwashed, the dosser, the loafer, the sleeper-out and the chicken-snatcher. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| CB Slanguage 23: Chicken Snatcher: thief. |
2. a derog. form of address, sometimes used affectionately.
| Arrowsmith 455: Why, you old son of a gun! Why, you damn’ old chicken-thief! | |
| Breed of the Chaparral (1949) 33: Called you a thief in Ricke Quentin’s last night. A low-down, sneakin’, yellow-bellied chicken thief! | |
| Marilyn The Wild (2003) 30: Who’s a chicken thief? |
(US) illegible handwriting; also attrib.
| Fremont Wkly Jrnl (OH) 16 Nov. 3/2: Mr Editor Please publish this That is if you can read those chicken tracks. | |
| Lawrence Dly Jrnl (KS) 20 May 1/1: A stranger, who happened to see some of the aforesaid prairie chicken tracks upon the unprinted manuscript, innocently inquired if the writer was one of the sufferers in the recent railroad accident. | |
| Salt Lake Herald (UT) 19 Nov. 4/3: The horny-fisted old chicken tracks of farmer Jones when placed at the business end of a cheque. | |
| in Benteen-Goldin Letters 11 Jan. (1991) 238: Sorry for troubling you to read so much chicken tracks. | |
| McCook Trib. (NE) 31 Aug. 6/4: He will [...] set down figures in a book whe his fingers may be so cold that the figures he makes look like chicken tracks. | |
| Commoner (Lincoln, NE) 1 June 27/3: The fun of correcting typographical errors and reading writing that looks like chicken tracks. | |
| One Man’s War 14: There were several letters in his pocket, written in sprawly, chicken-track handwriting. | |
| Associated Press 12 Sept. n.p.: The teacher had us all try to write the first letters of the alphabet [...] when she saw mine she said [...] ‘I’d better put you in the chicken tracks row’ [W&F]. | |
| in DARE. | |
| Rooster Cogburn 85: I will rub out your chicken tracks and work them over [HDAS]. |
(UK prison) an exercise yard.
| Wilds of London (1881) 43: There is a sort of round-house, divided into sections, with partitions too high to be overlooked, and up and down this ‘chicken-walk,’ as it is called, this class of prisoner tramps his alotted time in company of two warders. |
In phrases
see does a bear shit in the woods? Is the pope (a) Catholic? phr.
(US) a doomed person, a ‘lost soul’.
| ‘Larry’s Stiff’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 6: Poor Larry was now a gone chuck. | |
| Guy Rivers I 198: Yes – I thought myself a gone chick under that spur, George. | |
| Charcoal Sketches (1865) 158: Strike out, or you’re gone chickens! them as can’t swim must tread water. | |
| Columbia Democrat (Bloomsburg, PA) 6 Sept. 1/5: ‘I only took nine swallers of whiskey , and [...] I’m a gone chicken!’. | |
| Sat. Eve. Post 11 Sept. 19/1: If they pick up your tracks you’re a gone chicken [DA]. |
(US black) incompetent, unsophisticated.
| N.Y. Amsterdam News 15 Feb. 40: Cat that’s unhipped is like the chicken, ain’t stickin’. |
in the neck.
| Vancouver Dly World (BC) 13 July 5/3: [advert] If you place yourself at the mercy of an inexperienced barber the chances are 10 to 1 that he will give it to you where the chicken got the axe — in the neck. | |
| El Paso Herald-Post (TX) 6 Jan. n.p.: The street car drivers constantly got it where the chicken got the axe [...] following a wet snowstorm that made snow-balling ideal. | |
| Arlington Heights Herald (IL) 15 May n.p.: The Elgin Cubs got it where the chicken got the axe from the Bartlett 9 last Sunday. | |
| My Life in Prison 242: They just hang him from the neck down, and to get the right drop they have to know just how many feet and inches he is from his tootsie-wootsies to the place where the chicken got the axe. | |
| Limehouse Nights 31: Battling slouched out of the ring, still more determined to let the Chink have it where the chicken had the axe. | |
| Minneapolis Star (MN) 31 Oct. 14/1: Mr Mellon’s scheme got it where the chicken got the axe, and even Mr Coolidge’s veto [...] could save the day for it. | |
| Dly Capital News (Jefferson City, MO) 2 June 4/1: The editor [...] calls upon Gov. Stark to sharpen up his cleaver and see that the Revision Commission bill gets it where the chicken got the axe. | |
| Ottawa Jrnl 7 July 8/7: [from Manchester Guardian] They would not hearken to advice, or bend rebellious backs, / So now they duly get it where the chicken got the axe. | |
| Times-Herald (Olean, NY) 30 Oct. 12/1: The farmer, as well as the taxpayer and the consumer, was getting it where the chicken got the axe. | |
| Angola Herald (IN) 30 Sept. 1/1: Organized labor and the Farming fratermnities [...] are getting it where the chicken got the axe. | |
| Bennington Banner (VT) 5 Aug. 4/6: When commercial activities come into conflict with the public interest, the public interest usually gets it where the chicken got the axe. | |
| Burlington Free Press (VT) 17 May 10/6: Ford wants to run for President in ’76, but I think he will get it where the chicken got the axe. No farmers will vote for him. | |
| Age (Melbourne) 10 May 11/1: A promise that militant unionists will ‘get it where the chicken got the axe’. | |
| Sydney Morn. Herald 4 Aug. 158/5: In the end the consumption tax got it where the chicken got the axe. |