Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. petty, insignificant.

1796		T. Morton Way to Get Married in Inchbold (1808) XXV 10: If you wish to trade in style, and make a splash, you must fancy Cheapside and [...] Lloyds [...] egad – talk of Brooks’s or Newmarket; chicken hazard to the game we play at Lloyd’s.
1831		Satirist (London) 28 Aug. 166/1: He thus becomes the easier victim for plunder, and is invited to play at Chicken-hazard, as it is termed.
1838		R.S. Surtees Jorrocks Jaunts (1874) 108: Mr. Badchild proposed the game of ‘Chicken-hazard’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 99: chicken stakes, small paltry stakes.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 145: Inveigle a live lord — or, better still, a lordling — a bit of chicken- nobility, — to open it with a neat speech.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 203: I’m no chicken cully. Like ’nough, ’fore y’ know’t, I’ll chug onta sumph’n that’ll make us all cock-a-hoop.
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 273: Now Pat Crowe had a chicken wife, who thought more of pleasure than principle.
1955		Q. Reynolds Police Headquarters (1956) 269: None had actually been physiologically hooked; each had what the narcotics men call a ‘chicken habit’.
1960		ref. in H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 80: This last [i.e. chickenshit] is sometimes euphemized as C.S., chicken stuffing, or just plain chicken, as in George Gobel’s plaint, ‘How do you get out of this chicken outfit?’ (TV show, 2/28/60).

2. (also chicken-ass, chickenly) cowardly, timid, scared; also as adv.

1933		J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 532: He was the skinny, dark-haired punk [...] who was so chicken, wasn’t he.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 540: He was [...] so chicken.
1948		N. Mailer Naked and Dead 39: You’re acting awful chicken today.
1950		Hal Ellson Tomboy (1952) 10: You’re afraid. You’re chicken.
1961		M. Braly Felony Tank (1962) 38: I still think you’re too chicken to play against me.
1965		S. Yurick Warriors (1966) 20: The Dominators watched their own for the first mark of chicken-funk.
1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 95: Chicken-ass Frightened.
1974		G.V. Higgins Cogan’s Trade (1975) 67: And we knew you quit because you’re chicken.
1982		(con. 1970) J.M. Del Vecchio 13th Valley (1983) 366: Maybe [...] you men should think more about killing dinks than about turning chicken and running.
1991		F. Mac Anna Last of the High Kings 13: You’re chicken, she barged.
1998		Source Oct. 216: Other MCs act so chicken when they see him.
1999		Guardian G2 23 Aug. 4: They were threatening, cowardly chickenly low life bastards.
2000		N. Barlay Crumple Zone 134: You need real guts to climb up and half the crew dont do it because they are chicken.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] She’d started smoking at age thirteen, because her other friends were too chicken to try it.
2014		K. Barrett ‘Thirty Dollars’ in ThugLit Sept. [ebook] He'd just up and run, sprinted chicken.
2016		A. Wheatle Crongton Knights 236: ‘He’s gonna tell me where Manjaro’s chicken self is hiding out!’.

3. (gay) underage, boyish, inexperienced.

1960		(con. WWII) R. Leckie Marines! 42: He was only a chicken boot replacement.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 147: Suck that chicken cock.