hens

Noun

hen (plural hens)

1. A female chicken (Gallus gallus), especially a sexually mature one kept for her eggs.
   • She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
2. A female of other bird species, particularly a sexually mature female fowl.
   • In Tain, north of Inverness, staff detected 11 males and at least seven hens – the highest number there since 2011.2023 June 17, Severin Carrell, “Dancing Capercaillie bird makes a tentative comeback in Scotland”, in The Guardian
3. (uncommon) A female fish (especially a salmon or trout) or crustacean.
   • As spawning time approaches – autumn or very early winter in most rivers, though in some late-run streams salmon may spawn as late as January or February – the hen's colouration becomes first a matt-pewter and then a drab dark brown-grey. The cock fish, in contrast, begins to gain some brighter...2005, Roderick Sutterby, Malcolm Greenhalgh, “Life in the Nursery”, in Atlantic Salmon: An Illustrated Natural History, Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, →ISBN, page 21

   Synonyms:

   fishess, henfish, spawner

4. (figuratively) A woman.
   • Hen, a woman. A cock and hen club; a club composed of men and women.1785, Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
   1. (UK, figuratively, informal) A bride-to-be, particularly in the context of a hen night.
5. (UK, informal) A hen night.

See all 14 meanings of hen