Word.ws English Dictionary

like a chicken with its head cut off

like a chicken with its head cut off prepositional phrase: in a frantic, disorganized manner.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (informal) In a frantic, disorganized manner.
    • His idea of it was that he had been making a fool of himself, running around like a chicken with its head cut off—such was the simile that occurred to him.c. 1900, Jack London, To Build a Fire
    • Ken played or essayed to play right field for a while, but he ran around like a chicken with its head off.1911, Zane Grey, chapter 9, in The Young Pitcher

Examples of like a chicken with its head cut off in a sentence

  • I've been running round like a chicken with its head cut off.1920, Harold MacGrath, chapter 27, in The Drums Of Jeopardy:
  • Says one Pentagon arms-control expert: "Our setup was actually designed to act in time of general war like a chicken with its head cut off.1962 December 28, “Nation: New Fail-Safe”, in Time:
  • Rushing around like a chicken with its head cut off would serve no purpose.2003, Linda Lael Miller, Shotgun Bride, →ISBN, page 121:
  • That man... looks like a chicken with its head cut off!2023 December [2009], Kazune Kawahara, translated by Hana Allen, The Secret of Friendship, Seven Seas Entertainment, translation of 友だちの話...

Forms of like a chicken with its head cut off

alternative formlike a chicken with its head off
alternative formlike a chicken with no head
alternative formlike a headless chicken
alternative formlike a headless chook

Questions about like a chicken with its head cut off

What does like a chicken with its head cut off mean?
Like a chicken with its head cut off means in a frantic, disorganized manner.
How do you use like a chicken with its head cut off in a sentence?
I've been running round like a chicken with its head cut off.
What part of speech is like a chicken with its head cut off?
Like a chicken with its head cut off is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like a chicken with its head cut off in the dictionary

  1. like a cat in a strange garret
  2. like a cat on a hot tin roof
  3. like a champ
  4. like a charm
  5. like a chicken on a June bug
  6. like a chicken with its head cut off
  7. like a chicken with its head off
  8. like a chicken with no head
  9. like a chicken with the pip
  10. like a cow on a flat rock
  11. like a cow pissing on a flat rock

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a chicken with its head cut off (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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