Word.ws English Dictionary

played chicken

played chicken is the simple past and past participle of play chicken.

Meaning of play chicken

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.

Questions about played chicken

What is played chicken the simple past and past participle of?
Played chicken is the simple past and past participle of play chicken.

Words near played chicken in the dictionary

  1. played booty
  2. played both sides against the middle
  3. played by ear
  4. played by the rules
  5. played cheat
  6. played chicken
  7. played Cupid
  8. played dead
  9. played dirty
  10. played doctor
  11. played down

Source and license

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