CHICK

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Young bird especially of domestic fowl

Synonyms:

biddy; chick

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("chick" is a kind of...):

young bird (a bird that is still young)

chicken; Gallus gallus (a domestic fowl bred for flesh or eggs; believed to have been developed from the red jungle fowl)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Informal terms for a (young) woman

Synonyms:

bird; chick; dame; doll; skirt; wench

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("chick" is a kind of...):

fille; girl; miss; missy; young lady; young woman (a young female)

Credits

Context examples:

However, they gradually weaken as the hatching period approaches to make it easier for the chicks to break through the shell.

(Study paves way for healthier and more robust eggs, University of Granada)

After dinner Mr. Hawkins said:—'My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.'

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother old girl, too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still her own darling.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

If one happens only to shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young dab-chick in the water; and Benwick sits at her elbow, reading verses, or whispering to her, all day long.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The seven ptarmigan chicks and the baby weasel represented the sum of his killings.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

To investigate, the team examined the auditory organs of 6-day-old chick embryos.

(Hearing different frequencies, NIH)

Ma foi! but they come to our lure like chicks to the fowler.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This year it was to be a plantation of sun flowers, the seeds of which cheerful and aspiring plant were to feed Aunt Cockle-top and her family of chicks.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The reader will remember how I met Lord John Roxton upon the very occasion when, in his protective crinoline, he had gone to bring the "Devil's chick" as he called it, for Professor Challenger.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There were four newly hatched chicks, a day old—little specks of pulsating life no more than a mouthful; and he ate them ravenously, thrusting them alive into his mouth and crunching them like egg-shells between his teeth.