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# hen

«hen» in Mova's school dictionary: **a female chicken, 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 (hen, hens)

### meaning for a pupil

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

2) A hen can also be the female of some other birds, like a hen pheasant. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#m2)

3) A hen party, or hen night, is a party for a woman before her wedding. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

Animals counted; eggs laid per hen per day (a rate); two legs each. In science: hens lay eggs; a chick hatches after about 21 days; the male is a rooster or cockerel. In stories: The Little Red Hen, Chicken Little. Phrases: «hen house», «mother hen», «as rare as hen's teeth».

### examples

- Each hen lays 1 egg a day. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x1)
- The farmer has 12 hens. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x2)
- How many eggs in a week? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x3)
- Hens and cows have 40 legs in all. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x4)
- The hen sat on her eggs to keep them warm. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x5)
- We collected eggs from the hen house. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x6)
- The little red hen asked who would help her. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x7)
- A hen has two legs and two wings. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x8)
- THE HEN THAT LAYS GOLDEN EGGS. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/hen/#x9)

### note

«Each hen lays» is a rate: hens × eggs per hen × days. A week is 7 days. Trap: a hen has 2 legs, a cow 4 — in leg puzzles they are not the same. A hen is female, a rooster (cock) is male, a chick is a baby.

### In the corpora

- [Supermarket eggs never hatch because the hens live without a cockerel, and a hen lays about one egg a day.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/33-birds-feathers-wings-eggs-and-flight/9/)
- [Modern hens can lay around three hundred eggs a year, while wild junglefowl lay only a few dozen.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/212-chickens-eggs-pecking-order-and-living-dinosaurs/5/)
- [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/)
- [The colour of an eggshell depends on the hen's breed, not on how healthy the egg is.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/287-farm-animals-milk-eggs-wool-and-meat/10/)
- [Free-range hens can go outside, caged hens live inside buildings, and many countries have banned the smallest cages.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/287-farm-animals-milk-eggs-wool-and-meat/16/)

### Trees and pragmatics

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