Word.ws English Dictionary

chicken turtle

chicken turtle noun: an uncommon freshwater turtle, of species Deirochelys reticularia, found in the southeast of the United States, similar in appearance to the eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta), but with an unusually long, striped neck, a yellow stripe on each of its legs and a net-like pattern on its carapace.

chicken turtle: an uncommon freshwater turtle, of species Deirochelys reticularia, found in the southeast of the...
Image: BS Thurner Hof, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

chicken turtle (plural chicken turtles)

  1. An uncommon freshwater turtle, of species Deirochelys reticularia, found in the southeast of the United States, similar in appearance to the eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta), but with an unusually long, striped neck, a yellow stripe on each of its legs and a net-like pattern on its carapace.
    • ‘I've a chicken-turtle, which promises well—the first I've received this season, from what I call my West-Indian farm […].’1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 81

Forms of chicken turtle

pluralchicken turtles

Origin of chicken turtle

After the chicken-like flavor of its meat.

Words formed from chicken turtle

  • eastern chicken turtle
  • Florida chicken turtle
  • western chicken turtle

Questions about chicken turtle

What does chicken turtle mean?
Chicken turtle means an uncommon freshwater turtle, of species Deirochelys reticularia, found in the southeast of the United States, similar in appearance to the eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta), but with an unusually long, striped neck, a yellow stripe on each of its legs and a net-like pattern on its carapace.
What part of speech is chicken turtle?
Chicken turtle is a noun.
What is the plural of chicken turtle?
The plural of chicken turtle is chicken turtles.

Words near chicken turtle in the dictionary

  1. chicken tenders
  2. chicken throne
  3. chicken thrones
  4. chicken tractor
  5. chicken tractors
  6. chicken turtle
  7. chicken turtles
  8. chicken under a brick
  9. chicken Wellington
  10. chicken Wellingtons
  11. chicken wing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chicken turtle (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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Cite this entry: “chicken turtle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chicken_turtle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.