Word.ws English Dictionary

play chicken

play chicken verb: as a risky test of courage, to drive two vehicles directly toward one another in order to see which driver will swerve away first.

Verb

play chicken (third-person singular simple present plays chicken, present participle playing chicken, simple past and past participle played chicken)

  1. (idiomatic) As a risky test of courage, to drive two vehicles directly toward one another in order to see which driver will swerve away first.
  2. (informal, slang) To engage in a mutual challenge or threat, expecting the opponent to withdraw before an actual conflict or collision.

Forms of play chicken

third-person singular presentplays chicken
present participleplaying chicken
past participleplayed chicken
pastplayed chicken

Questions about play chicken

What does play chicken mean?
Play chicken means as a risky test of courage, to drive two vehicles directly toward one another in order to see which driver will swerve away first.
What part of speech is play chicken?
Play chicken is a verb.
What is the past tense of play chicken?
The past tense of play chicken is played chicken.

Words near play chicken in the dictionary

  1. play bows
  2. play by ear
  3. play by the rules
  4. play catch-up
  5. play cheat
  6. play chicken
  7. play clock
  8. play clocks
  9. play club
  10. play clubs
  11. play Cupid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play chicken (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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