chicken feed

See synonyms for chicken feed on Thesaurus.com
nounSlang.
  1. an insignificant sum of money: He's so rich that $1000 is chicken feed to him.

  2. small change, as pennies and nickels.

Origin of chicken feed

1
An Americanism dating back to 1830–40

Words Nearby chicken feed

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use chicken feed in a sentence

  • To everyone’s amusement, his first program optimized the nutritional content of chicken feed.

    Fields of vision | Sameer A. Kamal, MNG ’08, ENG ’09 | December 17, 2021 | MIT Technology Review
  • Misakyab ku sa sabud sa mga manuk, I threw the chicken feed to the chickens.

  • "No chicken feed for me," he would say when they were set before him.

    Roads of Destiny | O. Henry
  • However, to do him justice, the transaction was more or less what he would have called "chicken-feed stuff."

    Galusha the Magnificent | Joseph C. Lincoln
  • Carolus stood in the yard eating Madam Land's chicken-feed and sour milk with excellent appetite.

    What Happened to Inger Johanne | Dikken Zwilgmeyer
  • For this reason this plant is hated by the Syrians, although they use tares very extensively as chicken feed.

    The Syrian Christ | Abraham Mitrie Rihbany

British Dictionary definitions for chicken feed

chicken feed

noun
  1. slang a trifling amount of money

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with chicken feed

chicken feed

Trifling amount of money, as in I'm not going to mow lawns for $5 an hour—that's chicken feed. This expression alludes to the fact that chickens can be fed corn and wheat grains too small for other uses. [Slang; early 1800s]

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.