Word.ws English Dictionary

Chicken Little

Chicken Little proper noun: a children’s fable about a young chicken who, in the traditional version, believes the sky is falling after an acorn hits her head. Also known by other names including The Sky is Falling.

Proper noun

Chicken Little

  1. A children’s fable about a young chicken who, in the traditional version, believes the sky is falling after an acorn hits her head. Also known by other names including The Sky is Falling.

Noun

Chicken Little (plural Chicken Littles)

  1. The main character in this story, a hysterical young chicken; (by extension) someone who resembles the character.
    • With so many “Chicken Littles” running around claiming the sky is about to fall, the men at the top normally cannot do much until “Henney Penney”^([sic]) and “Foxy Loxy” have also started screaming for help, or there is a convergence of alarm signals from a number of unrelated sources within the...1982, Donald A. Marchand, Forest W. Horton, Information Management in Public Administration, Info Resources Press, →ISBN, page 118
    • Dr. Railly, you've given the alarmists a bad name. […] Surely there's very real and convincing data that the planet cannot survive the excesses of the human race. […] Proliferation of atomic devices, uncontrolled breeding habits, pollution of land, sea and air, the rape of the environment. In this...1995, David Peoples, Janet Peoples, 12 Monkeys

Examples of Chicken Little in a sentence

  • In this context, isn't it obvious that Chicken Little represents the sane vision, and that Homo sapiens' motto, "Let's go shopping," is the cry of the true lunatic?1995, David Peoples, Janet Peoples, 12 Monkeys:
  • “We need to take these glaciers seriously without sounding like Chicken Little,” Joughin said in an email.2022 February 2, Ian Joughin, quotee, “Antarctica’s ‘Doomsday Glacier’ keeps scientists at bay with iceberg and sea ice”, in The Guardian:

Forms of Chicken Little

Proper noun
alternative formChicken Licken
Noun
pluralChicken Littles

Questions about Chicken Little

What does Chicken Little mean?
Chicken Little means a children’s fable about a young chicken who, in the traditional version, believes the sky is falling after an acorn hits her head. Also known by other names including The Sky is Falling.
How do you use Chicken Little in a sentence?
In this context, isn't it obvious that Chicken Little represents the sane vision, and that Homo sapiens' motto, "Let's go shopping," is the cry of the true lunatic?
What part of speech is Chicken Little?
Chicken Little can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near Chicken Little in the dictionary

  1. chicken leg
  2. chicken legs
  3. chicken lice
  4. Chicken Licken
  5. Chicken Lickens
  6. Chicken Little
  7. Chicken Littles
  8. chicken liver
  9. chicken livers
  10. chicken lollipop
  11. chicken lollipops

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Chicken Little (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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