Word.ws English Dictionary

heath hen

heath hen noun: a female black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix).

heath hen: a female black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix)
Image: C. Horwitz, fiancee of Steven G. Johnson (permission, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

heath hen (plural heath hens)

  1. A female black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix).
    • The Heath-Hen flutters, (pious Fraud!) to lead / The hot pursuing Spaniel far astray.a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Spring”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    grey hen
  2. Any of an extinct subspecies of grouse that once lived in North America (†Tympanuchus cupido cupido).

Synonyms of heath hen

Forms of heath hen

pluralheath hens

Questions about heath hen

What does heath hen mean?
Heath hen means a female black grouse (Lyrurus tetrix).
What part of speech is heath hen?
Heath hen is a noun.
What is the plural of heath hen?
The plural of heath hen is heath hens.

Words near heath hen in the dictionary

  1. heath cocks
  2. Heath End
  3. heath fritillaries
  4. heath fritillary
  5. Heath Green
  6. heath hen
  7. heath hens
  8. Heath Hill
  9. heath pea
  10. heath peas
  11. Heath Robinson

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heath hen (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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