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# chicken

«chicken» in Mova's school dictionary: **a farm bird that lays eggs** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (chicken, chickens); adjective (chicken — scared, slang); verb (chicken out)

### meaning for a pupil

1) A chicken is a farm bird that lays eggs. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#m1)

2) Chicken is also the meat of this bird, which people eat. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#m2)

3) In slang, «chicken» means scared, and to «chicken out» is to be too scared to do something. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In school maths: a counted animal with 2 legs; a farm laying eggs each day; chicken as food bought by weight; «chickens and rabbits» legs puzzles. In science: chickens hatch from eggs (life cycles); they are birds but can hardly fly. In everyday life: roast chicken, chicken soup, keeping hens in a garden. Phrases: «chicken and egg» (which came first?), «don't count your chickens before they hatch».

### examples

- A farmer has 12 chickens and 5 cows. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x1)
- Each chicken lays 1 egg a day. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x2)
- Chickens and rabbits have 40 legs in all. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x3)
- Mum buys 2 kg of chicken. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x4)
- A chicken has 2 legs and 2 wings. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x5)
- The chicks hatched from their eggs today. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x6)
- We had roast chicken for Sunday lunch. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x7)
- He wanted to jump but chickened out. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x8)
- ‘I’ll eat one of these chickens.’ [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/#x9)

### note

Animal: countable («a chicken»); meat: uncountable («some chicken»). A hen is a female chicken, a rooster or cock is a male, a chick is a baby. Maths: a counted animal; a chicken has 2 legs, which matters in legs problems. Trap: in «chickens and rabbits» puzzles the legs differ (2 and 4). Safety: always cook chicken all the way through.

### In the corpora

- [Snap a chicken bone from Sunday dinner and it is hollow, with thin struts inside like a bridge, light but strong.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/2/)
- [Chickens scratch and peck for seeds, worms and insects; they are omnivores and will even eat mice and small frogs.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/212-chickens-eggs-pecking-order-and-living-dinosaurs/7/)
- [Foxes hunt chickens, which cannot fly well and sleep deeply at night, so a hen house must be shut every evening.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/212-chickens-eggs-pecking-order-and-living-dinosaurs/12/)
- [Snap the wishbone of the Sunday chicken and you hold the same two joined collarbones that T. rex and Velociraptor had.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/269-feathered-dinosaurs-archaeopteryx-to-chicken/4/)
- [Carve a roast chicken and you can count two legs, two wings and two breasts, each a different muscle.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/343-where-meat-and-fish-come-from-told-honestly/5/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «chicken» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/C/chicken/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.