Word.ws English Dictionary

hen-cackle

hen-cackle noun: a loud, sharp, or broken sound made by a hen, especially after laying an egg.

Noun

hen-cackle (countable and uncountable, plural hen-cackles)

  1. (literally) A loud, sharp, or broken sound made by a hen, especially after laying an egg.
  2. (broadly, figuratively, slang) A shrill, loud, or raucous laughter or chatter, typically associated with women.
    • Doubtless there is a wider application of the term since a mere hen-cackle, a trifle, seems to have been the origin of the application.1941, Sidney John Baker, New Zealand Slang, A Dictionary of Colloquialisms, the First Comprehensive Survey Yet Made of Indigenous English Speech in this Country--from the Argot of Whaling Days to...

Forms of hen-cackle

pluralhen-cackles

Questions about hen-cackle

What does hen-cackle mean?
Hen-cackle means a loud, sharp, or broken sound made by a hen, especially after laying an egg.
What part of speech is hen-cackle?
Hen-cackle is a noun.
What is the plural of hen-cackle?
The plural of hen-cackle is hen-cackles.

Words near hen-cackle in the dictionary

  1. hen's parties
  2. hen's party
  3. hen's teeth
  4. hen's tooth
  5. hen's-foot
  6. hen-cackle
  7. hen-cackles
  8. hen-hawk
  9. hen-hawks
  10. hen-hearted
  11. hen-heartedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hen-cackle (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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