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Chicken
The chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is a type of domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the red junglefowl. It is one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, with a total population of more than 19 billion as of 2011. There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food (consuming both their meat and eggs) and, less commonly, as pets. Originally raised for cockfighting or for special ceremonies, chickens were not kept for food until the Hellenistic period (4th–2nd centuries BC).Genetic studies have pointed to multiple maternal origins in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and South Asia, but with the clade found in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa originating in the Indian subcontinent. From ancient India, the domesticated chicken spread to Lydia in western Asia Minor, and to Greece by the 5th century BC. Fowl had been known in Egypt since the mid-15th century BC, with the “bird that gives birth every day” having come to Egypt from the land between Syria and Shinar, Babylonia, according to the annals of Thutmose III.
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Chicken (noun)
A domestic fowl, Gallus gallus, especially when young.
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Chicken (noun)
The meat from this bird eaten as food.
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Chicken (noun)
A coward.
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Chicken (noun)
A young or inexperienced person.
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Chicken (noun)
A young, attractive, slim man, usually having little body hair; compare chickenhawk.
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Chicken (noun)
The dare.
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Chicken (noun)
A simple dance in which the movements of a chicken are imitated.
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Chicken (adjective)
Cowardly.
“Why do you refuse to fight? Huh, I guess you’re just too chicken.”
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Chicken (verb)
To avoid a situation one is afraid of.
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Chook (noun)
A chicken, especially a hen.
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Chook (noun)
A cooked chicken; a chicken dressed for cooking.
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Chook (noun)
A fool.
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Chook (interjection)
A call made to chickens.
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Chicken (noun)
a domestic fowl kept for its eggs or meat, especially a young one
“rationing was still in force and most people kept chickens”
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Chicken (noun)
meat from a chicken
“roast chicken”
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Chicken (noun)
a game in which the first person to lose their nerve and withdraw from a dangerous situation is the loser
“he was killed by a car after he lay in the road playing chicken”
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Chicken (noun)
a coward.
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Chicken (adjective)
cowardly
“I was too chicken to go to court”
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Chicken (verb)
withdraw from or fail in something through lack of nerve
“the referee chickened out of giving a penalty”