hen
Americannoun
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hens
plural
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a female chicken.
Our hens only recently started laying, but these fresh eggs were worth the wait!
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the female of any bird, especially a gallinaceous bird.
The mallard drakes are splendidly colorful while the hens are camouflaged in drab plumage.
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the female of certain marine creatures, including lobsters and salmon.
I prefer a hen when making lobster bisque, as the dark red roe enhances both flavor and color.
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Informal: Sometimes Offensive. a usually middle-aged or older woman, especially one who is considered to be petty or gossipy.
Let’s get out of here and leave the hens to their blather.
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Informal. a female in attendance at a hen party.
The incident at the restaurant occurred hours after our party was over and we’d all gone home, but all of us hens were brought in for questioning the next morning.
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British and Australian Informal. the bride-to-be at a bachelorette party.
A toast to Vera, the beautiful hen, who’s flying our coop in less than a fortnight!
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Scots Informal. an affectionate or familiar term of address to a girl or woman.
That’s lovely, hen, thank you.
noun
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the female of any bird, esp the adult female of the domestic fowl
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the female of certain other animals, such as the lobster
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informal a woman regarded as gossipy or foolish
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dialect a term of address (often affectionate), used to women and girls
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extremely rare
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hen
First recorded before 1000; Middle English; Old English hen(n) (compare Old English hana “cock”); cognate with German Henne; akin to Latin canere “to sing”; see also chant ( def. ), charm 1 ( def. )
Explanation
A hen is a female chicken. It's important to make sure your new backyard chickens are hens and not roosters — otherwise, those eggs you're looking forward to just aren't going to happen. You can use the word hen for the female of many birds, including turkeys, pheasants, and quail, as well as for a female lobster. In parts of Britain, a hen can also be a (slightly offensive) slang term for a woman, and if something's described as being "rare as hen's teeth," it's extremely precious or scarce.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The projected 2026 wholesale price on a frozen whole hen climbed to over $1.74 per pound.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 23, 2026
Ground-nesting birds such as hen harriers rely on open, treeless bog, safe from predators that would otherwise perch and watch for prey, while the wet ground breeds the invertebrates chicks are fed on.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
Attendees were served a Jeffersonian menu, including guinea hen stuffed with kale.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
The swamp hen, known by its scientific name, Porphyrio martinica, is mostly found along the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean as well as parts of South America.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
She darted around the side of the house, holding on to the hen.
From "Nory Ryan’s Song" by Patricia Reilly Giff
Versova, which has had about 25 million egg-laying hens die from the bird flu outbreak, also said it denies wrongdoing and reached the settlement to focus on its business.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
Depre raises around 17,500 free-range hens and 70,000 quails in sheds with outdoor runs.
From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026
Oversized animals, including dinosaurs, bulls, roosters, hens and seals, also multiplied.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
During the avian flu outbreak, millions of hens were destroyed across the country.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 23, 2025
Old T.R. sprang up from under Granny’s boxwood, where he’d been cooling off, and ran ahead of us to chase Granny’s dominecker hens out of the path.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
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