Word.ws English Dictionary

mother hen

mother hen noun: a female chicken who bears eggs or chicks. Also the alternative form of mother-hen.

Noun

mother hen (plural mother hens)

  1. (literally) A female chicken who bears eggs or chicks.
  2. (idiomatic) An outspoken and overprotective woman or person dealing with others' affairs; especially, an assertive matriarch.
    • Baela sends a letter by raven to her father Daemon spilling all the tea, and the news sends a now-pregnant Rhaenyra into mother-hen mode.2022 October 10, Jenna Scherer, “House Of The Dragon drops its best episode yet”, in AV Club

Also used as

mother hen is also the alternative form of mother-hen.

mother hen meaning in Tamil

mother hen in Tamil

female chicken
தாய்க்கோழி tāykkōḻi

Forms of mother hen

Noun
pluralmother hens
Verb
third-person singular presentmother hens
present participlemother henning
past participlemother henned
pastmother henned

Questions about mother hen

What does mother hen mean?
Mother hen means a female chicken who bears eggs or chicks.
What is mother hen in Tamil?
Mother hen in Tamil is தாய்க்கோழி (tāykkōḻi). See Mother hen meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is mother hen?
Mother hen is a noun.
What is the plural of mother hen?
The plural of mother hen is mother hens.

Words near mother hen in the dictionary

  1. mother figures
  2. mother fucker
  3. mother fuckers
  4. mother goddess
  5. mother goddesses
  6. mother hen
  7. mother henned
  8. mother henning
  9. mother hens
  10. mother heroine
  11. mother heroines

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mother hen (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-mother hen.ogg.

Cite this entry: “mother hen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mother_hen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.