Hen

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /hɛn/

Definitions

1. A female bird, most commonly referring to a chicken bred for egg laying ; an informal term for a woman, often used in casual or regional speech ; the female of certain other animal species such as rabbits or hawks
2. A mature female bird typically raised for eggs or meat ; a colloquial word for a female person, frequently heard in everyday conversations ; a female individual of some animal types beyond birds
3. The adult female of birds like chickens that are known for producing eggs ; a familiar or informal label for a woman in social language ; the female counterpart in various animal species distinct from males

Etymology: The bird sense of "hen" is one of the oldest words in English that has not changed much in form. Its Old English form was "henn," and it belongs to a family of words across Germanic languages: Dutch "hen," German "Henne," Swedish "höna," Icelandic "hæna." The shared ancestor, reconstructed as Proto-Germanic "hanjō," is linked to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to sing," which also gave Latin "canō" and Russian "petux" for rooster. The likely idea is a bird known by its noise, though the link is reconstructed rather than documented. The word has a second, unrelated life. "Hen" in the sense of "hence" or "away" comes from Old English "heonan," meaning "from here," and developed into Middle English forms that eventually became a rough-sounding dialect word meaning "away." Its origin is the Proto-Indo-European root for "this" or "here," tying it to "hence" and to Dutch "heen" and German "hin." Because the two words share a spelling and a sound, readers often assume they are connected, but they came into English along separate paths.

Synonyms: female chicken, fowl, poultry, bird, layer

Antonyms: rooster, male chicken, cock, drake, gander