chicken (redirected from chickens)

be no spring chicken (humorous)

to not be young any more. He must be ten years older than Grace, and she's no spring chicken.

See also: spring

a chicken and egg situation

a situation in which it is impossible to say which of two things existed first and which caused the other. It's a chicken and egg situation - I don't know whether I was bad at the sciences because I wasn't interested in them or not interested in them and therefore not good at them.

See also: egg, situation

chicken feed

a very small amount of money, especially money that is paid for doing a job. He pays his labourers chicken feed.

See also: feed

chicken-hearted (American)

not brave. These chicken-hearted bosses always seem to give in at the first sign of a strike.

chickens come home to roost

if you say that chickens are coming home to roost, you mean that bad or silly things done in the past are beginning to cause problems. There was too much greed in the past, and now the chickens are coming home to roost with crime and corruption soaring.

See also: come, home, roost

Don't count your chickens (before they're hatched).

something that you say in order to warn someone to wait until a good thing they are expecting has really happened before they make any plans about it. You might be able to get a loan from the bank, but don't count your chickens.

See also: count, don't

like a headless chicken (British, American)

if you do something like a headless chicken, you do it very quickly and without thinking carefully about what you are doing. I've got so much work to do - I've been running around like a headless chicken all week. (usually in continuous tenses) He was racing around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to do the work of two people.

See also: like