Word.ws English Dictionary

like a headless chicken

like a headless chicken is the alternative form of like a chicken with its head cut off.

Meaning of like a chicken with its head cut off

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

Questions about like a headless chicken

What is like a headless chicken the alternative form of?
Like a headless chicken is the alternative form of like a chicken with its head cut off.

Words near like a headless chicken in the dictionary

  1. like a duck takes to water
  2. like a duck to water
  3. like a dying duck in a thunderstorm
  4. like a fart in church
  5. like a hawk
  6. like a headless chicken
  7. like a headless chook
  8. like a hen on a hot griddle
  9. like a hole in one's head
  10. like a hole in the head
  11. like a hot knife through butter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a headless chicken (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “like a headless chicken.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/like_a_headless_chicken. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.