Word.ws English Dictionary

Little Red Hen syndrome

Little Red Hen syndrome noun: the situation where people who did not contribute to something expect a share of the reward or credit.

Noun

Little Red Hen syndrome (uncountable)

  1. The situation where people who did not contribute to something expect a share of the reward or credit.

Origin of Little Red Hen syndrome

From the folk tale The Little Red Hen, in which the animals who would not help to plant the wheat, make the flour, etc. expect to receive some of the bread.

Questions about Little Red Hen syndrome

What does Little Red Hen syndrome mean?
Little Red Hen syndrome means the situation where people who did not contribute to something expect a share of the reward or credit.
What part of speech is Little Red Hen syndrome?
Little Red Hen syndrome is a noun.

Words near Little Red Hen syndrome in the dictionary

  1. little raven
  2. little ravens
  3. Little Red Book
  4. little red dot
  5. little red dots
  6. Little Red Hen syndrome
  7. Little Red Riding Hood
  8. Little Red Riding-Hood
  9. Little Redonda
  10. Little Rhody
  11. little ringed plover

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Little Red Hen syndrome (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: “Little Red Hen syndrome.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/little_red_hen_syndrome. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.