Chicken

Forms: 1 cicen, (ciken, ciccen), 2, 4–6 chiken, 4– chicken. (4 chykin, chekon, 4–5 cheken, 4–6 chyken, 5 chykyn, -on, -ynge, chycon, checon, schecon, schekyn, 5–6 chekyn, chikyn, 6 cheekyne, 6–7 chickin, 7 (?) chikin, chicking.) Pl. 1 cicenu, 2–3 chikene, 4 chikenes, -ys, chiknes, -nys, 5– ens. [OE. cicen, pl. cicenu. In the same sense Du. has kieken, kuiken, MDu. kieken (kiekijn), kûken, MLG. and LG. küken, MHG. küchen; whence Ger. küchlein; also ON. kjúklingr (Sw. kjukling, Da. kylling). The relations between these words are not clear; some think that OE. cicen represents an earlier *cíecen, going back, with Du. kieken, to an OTeut. *kiukīno^m, a dim. of *kiuk- (cf. the ON.), ablaut-form of *kuk-, whence cock.

  But an OE. cíecen ought to have given in ME. chīchen; and the non-palatalization of the second c could be accounted for only by an OE. contraction *ciecnes, *ciecnu, etc., at a date anterior to that of palatalization. But in all the OE. and early ME. examples the word remains full and uncontracted.

  1.  The young of the domestic fowl; its flesh.

c. 950.  Lindisf. Gosp., Matt. xxiii. 37. Suæ henne somniʓas cicceno hire.

c. 975.  Rushw. Gosp., ibid. Swa henne somnaþ ciken hiræ.

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 132. Pullus, cicen. Ibid., 318. Pullus, cicen oððe brid, oððe fola.

c. 1000.  Ags. Gosp., Matt. xxiii. 37. Swa seo henn hyre cicenu under hyre fyðeru ʓegaderað.

c. 1160.  Hatton G., ibid. chikene.

1382.  Wyclif, Tobit viii. 11. Aboute chykenys crowyng [Vulg. circa pullorum cantum].

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Prol., 380. To boille the chiknes [v.r. chikenes, -ys] with the Marybones.

1399.  Langl., Rich. Redeles, II. 144. As þe houshennes … cherichen her chekonys.

c. 1460.  J. Russell, Bk. Nurture, 799, in Babees Bk. (1868), 170. Boyled Chykon or capon agreable.

1474.  Caxton, Chesse, 14. The cok that nothyng norissheth his chekens.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 13. He … cheryssheth vs, as the egle her byrdes, the brood hen her chekyns.

1593.  Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. i. 249. To guard the Chicken from a hungry Kyte.

1692.  Bentley, Boyle Lect., 96. The superstitious observation … of the flying of vulturs, and the pecking of chickings.

1702.  W. J., trans. Bruyn’s Voy. Levant, xl. 159. At Cairo … they hatch Chickens in certain Ovens.

1760.  Johnson, Idler, No. 93, ¶ 2. The company may … refresh themselves with cold tongue, chicken, and French rolls.

1858.  O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., 303. When the spring-chickens come to market.

  † b.  Extended to the young of any bird. Obs.

c. 1440.  Gesta Rom., I. xxviii. 108. The brydde in the nest is the Holy Goste … the vij. chekenis ben the vij. werkes of mercy.

1577.  B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1613), IV. 158 b. The [Turkey’s] Chickens being hatched vnder a Henne, may be kept with the Hennes Chickens.

1581.  Marbeck, Bk. of Notes, 470. These Halcions making their nests in the sea rocks or sands, wil sit their Egges & hatch forth their chickens.

1651.  W. G., trans. Cowel’s Inst., 58. The Chickins or young ones of such Birds as build in my Trees.

  c.  Chicken sometimes occurs as a plural or collective. Still dial., with CHICK as the singular.

1600.  Heywood, 1st Pt. Edw. IV., Wks. 1874, I. 5. So our children haue beene still like Chicken of the halfe kind.

1677.  Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. i. 30. In Chicken and other Fowl, after the separation of the Head from the Body there is a motion of the parts divided.

1807.  Crabbe, Par. Reg., I. 195. There pigs and chicken quarrel for a meal.

1829.  Southey, Pilgr. Compostella, IV. The chicken were her delight.

1875.  Parish, Sussex Dial., Chicken, in Mid-Sussex used as the plural of chick.

  2.  transf. of human offspring: A child.

a. 1400[?].  Morte Arth., 4182. The churles chekyne hade chaungyde his armes.

1605.  Shaks., Macb., IV. iii. 218. What, all my petty chickens and their dam At one fell swoop?

1642.  T. Taylor, God’s Judgem., II. vi. 82. A chicken of the same broode was Messalina.

1809.  Malkin, Gil Blas, X. x. (Bohn), 498. Well! my chicken, said he … are you satisfied?

  3.  fig. A youthful person; one young and inexperienced. (To be) no chicken: no longer young.

1711.  Steele, Spect., No. 216, ¶ 2. You ought to consider you are now past a Chicken; this Humour, which was well enough in a Girl, is insufferable in one of your Motherly Character.

1720.  Swift, Stella’s Birth-day. Pursue your trade of scandal-picking, Your hints that Stella is no chicken.

1809.  Cobbett, Pol. Reg., 25 March, XV. No. 12. 421. An infant at law? A mere chicken?

1877.  E. Walford, Gt. Families, I. 170. He must have been well forward in years—or at all events, as they say, no chicken.

1880.  Spencer Walpole, Hist. Eng., III. xii. 43. [Michael Angelo Taylor, M.P.] calling himself on one occasion ‘a mere chicken in the law,’ he was ever afterwards known as ‘Chicken Taylor.’

  b.  Applied to one who is as timorous or defenceless as a chicken. Cf. CHICKEN-HEARTED.

1611.  Shaks., Cymb., V. ii. 42. Forth with they flye Chickens, the way which they stopt [Globe ed, stoop’d] Eagles.

1633.  T. Stafford, Pac. Hib., xix. (1821), 199. Not finding the Defendants to be Chikins, to be afraid of every cloud or kite.

1707.  Farquhar, Beaux’ Strat., IV. iii. 54. Gib. You assure me thai Scrub is a Coward. Bou. A Chicken, as the saying is.

  4.  Mother Cary’s (or Carey’s) chicken, a name given by sailors to the Stormy Petrel (Procellaria pelagica): also (in pl.) applied to falling snow.

1767.  Carteret, in Hawksworth, Voy. (1773), I. 318. The peterels, to which sailors have given the name of Mother Carey’s Chickens.

1836.  Marryat, Midsh. Easy (1863), 189. All this comes from your croaking—you’re a Mother Cary’s chicken.

1864.  Athenæum, 558/2. ‘Mother Cary’s Chickens,’ the sailors’ slang for snow … ‘Mother Cary’ being the Mater cara … of the Levantine sailors.

  5.  Short for CHICKEN-HAZARD.

1865.  Daily Tel., 5 Dec., 3/4. ‘Don’t go; let’s have a little chicken.’… A ‘little chicken’ does not mean a wing and a little weak white wine and water, but the rattling of certain ivory cubes in a little leather box.

  6.  Proverbs.

1579.  Gosson, Ephem., 192. I woulde not haue him to counte his Chickens so soone before they be hatcht.

1611.  Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xiv. 33. 617.

1664.  Butler, Hud., II. iii. 197/923. To swallow Gudgeons, e’re th’ are chatch’d, And count their Chickens, e’re th’ are hatch’d.

1810.  Southey, Kehama, Motto, Curses are like young chickens: they always come home to roost.

1882.  Hazlitt, Eng. Prov., Children and chicken must ever be picking.

  7.  General combinations, as † chicken-bird, -cavie, -coop, -house, -keeper, -merchant, -pie, -salad; also in parasynthetic compounds, as chicken-brained, -spirited (= CHICKEN-HEARTED), -toed, adjs.

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 4984. With bathe þe chekis & þe chauyls as a *chykin bird.

1678.  Otway, Friendship in F., 24. What a *Chicken-brain’d Fellow am I grown? If I but dip my Bill I am giddy.

1785.  Burns, Jolly Beggars. Ahint the *chicken-cavie.

1789.  Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 173. St. Mark’s Place is all covered over in a morning with *chicken-coops.

1789.  H. Walpole, Remin., ix. 70. The duchess carrying off the chicken-coop under her arm.

1884.  E. P. Roe, in Harper’s Mag., Jan., 288/1. They are shut up in the *chicken-house.

1610.  Healey, St. Aug. Citie of God, 140. He that kept them was called Pullarius, the *chickin-keeper.

1832.  Edinb. Rev., LV. 490. Young Nick, the *chicken-merchant.

1824.  Scott, Lett., 3 Feb., in Lockhart (1839), VII. 229. Though I shall never … eat her *chicken-pies. Ibid. (1828), F. M. Perth, xx. A timorous, *chicken-spirited, though well-meaning man.

1860.  Reade, Cloister & H., I. 69. The English gentry, in velvet jerkins, and *chicken-toed shoes.

  8.  Special combs.: chicken breast, a malformed projection of the breast-bone; hence chicken-breasted a. (more usually pigeon-breasted); chicken-broth, a decoction of the flesh and bones of a chicken, used as a nutritious food for invalids; hence v. (humorous), to dose with chicken-broth; chicken-cholera, ‘an infectious disease of chickens, which is very destructive in the poultry farms of France’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); chicken-flesh, = goose-flesh; chicken-grape, an American species of the vine (Vitis cordifolia); † chicken-knots, the chalazæ of an egg; chicken-pecked a., governed by a child (humorous nonce-wd., after hen-pecked); chicken-pepper, the Ranunculus abortivus (Syd. Soc. Lex.); chicken-snake, a species of American snake considered particularly destructive to chickens and eggs (Bartlett); chicken stake, a small stake (at play); chicken thief (U.S. colloq.), a petty thief, a pilferer; † chicken-water, = chicken-broth; chickenwort, = CHICKWEED.

1849–52.  Todd, Cycl. Anat., IV. 1038/1. That deformity called *‘chicken-breast’ appears to be independent of the condition of the spine.

1670.  Eachard, Cont. Clergy, 30. *Chicken-broath is not thinner than that which is commonly offered for a piece of most pleading and convincing sense.

1870–4.  R. Anderson, Missions Amer. Board, III. xi. 176. Every Nestorian … would sooner die than touch a spoonful of chicken-broth during a fast.

1856.  Lever, Martins of Cro’ M., 386. Nursing, and comforting, and chicken-brothing me to my heart’s content.

1883.  Standard, 29 Sept., 3/5. The attenuation of the virus of … *chicken cholera, by the action of oxygen.

1888.  Spectator, 5 May, 595/2. M. Pasteur’s proposal to kill off the Australian rabbits by Chicken-Cholera.

1887.  Month, LXI. 14. I got *‘chicken flesh’ all over my body.

1883.  A. M. Mayer, in Century Mag., Aug., 487/2. They regale themselves on … the berries of the haw, the gum, and the *chicken-grape.

1615.  Markham, Eng. Housew., II. ii. (1668), 55. Cleanse away the little white *chicken knots, which stick unto the yelks.

1786.  Burgoyne, Heiress, III. i. (D.). What am I the better for burying a jealous wife? To be *chicken-peck’d is a new persecution more provoking than the old one.

1868.  F. Boyle, Ride across Cont., II. 285. The boba or *chicken-snake … rarely attains a greater length than twelve feet.

1785.  Daines Barrington, in Archæol., VIII. 133*. There are also considerable heaps of gold and silver on the table, so that these dignified personages seem to have played for what would not at present be called a *chicken stake.

1856.  Olmsted, Slave States, 674. *‘Chicken thieves.’ The nuisance of petty traders dealing with the negroes, and encouraging them to pilfer.

1769.  Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 313. To make *Chicken Water.

1789.  W. Buchan, Dom. Med., 541. The patient may be supported … by clysters of beef-tea, or chicken-water.

1765.  A. Dickson, Treat. Agric., 486. The frequent plowing of this soil makes it run much to *chickenwort, and other creeping weeds.