HEN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hen mean? 

• HEN (noun)
  The noun HEN has 4 senses:

1. adult female chicken

2. adult female bird

3. flesh of an older chicken suitable for stewing

4. female of certain aquatic animals e.g. octopus or lobster

  Familiarity information: HEN used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HEN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Adult female chicken

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

biddy; hen

Hypernyms ("hen" is a kind of...):

chicken; Gallus gallus (a domestic fowl bred for flesh or eggs; believed to have been developed from the red jungle fowl)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "hen"):

cackler (a hen that has just laid an egg and emits a shrill squawk)

brood hen; broody; broody hen; setting hen; sitter (a domestic hen ready to brood)

mother hen (a hen with chicks)

layer (a hen that lays eggs)

pullet (young hen usually less than a year old)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Adult female bird

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("hen" is a kind of...):

bird (warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrates characterized by feathers and forelimbs modified as wings)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Flesh of an older chicken suitable for stewing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting foods and drinks

Hypernyms ("hen" is a kind of...):

chicken; poulet; volaille (the flesh of a chicken used for food)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Female of certain aquatic animals e.g. octopus or lobster

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("hen" is a kind of...):

female (an animal that produces gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes (spermatozoa))

 Context examples 

But what is the meaning of these “head-keepers” and “hen pheasants”?

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the morning, when the master came out on to the porch, fifty white Leghorn hens, laid out in a row by the groom, greeted his eyes.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Mr. Laurence watches over us like a motherly old hen, as Jo says, and Laurie is very kind and neighborly.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Yes, for the rascal vanguard have cleared every hen from the country-side.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The membrane in hens' eggs that helps chicken embryos get enough oxygen and calcium for development.

(Chorioallantoic membrane, NCI Dictionary)

Put the men in training, and it’s a horse to a hen on the bruiser.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Transgenic hens carrying recombinant human G-CSF cDNA express the naturally glycosylated recombinant human protein in egg albumen from which glycosylated recombinant human G-CSF AVI-014 is isolated.

(Glycosylated Recombinant Human G-CSF AVI-014, NCI Thesaurus)

The findings could be used to produce healthier, more robust eggs by providing researchers with the means to genetically select laying hens with specific characteristics.

(Study paves way for healthier and more robust eggs, University of Granada)

But as she sat she bethought herself of the egg that the moon had given her; and when she broke it, there ran out a hen and twelve chickens of pure gold, that played about, and then nestled under the old one’s wings, so as to form the most beautiful sight in the world.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Her taste for drawing was not superior; though whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way, by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)