Meaning & use
a hen
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“a hen” is a form of “hen”. See that entry for the full set of meanings.
Meanings
nouncountable
An adult female chicken, often kept for its eggs.
Grammar: Countable: a hen, two hens. It is the female counterpart of a rooster or cock.
Patterns
- keep hens
- a hen lays an egg
- a hen house
The farmer keeps ten hens and one rooster.
Our hen lays a brown egg almost every morning.
The hens ran into the yard when we opened the gate.
nouncountabletechnical
The female of various other birds, such as the pheasant or the turkey.
Grammar: Countable and usually used with the bird name: a pheasant hen, a turkey hen.
Patterns
- a pheasant hen
- a turkey hen
- a hen bird
We saw a pheasant hen hiding in the tall grass.
The turkey hen sat on her nest for days.
A hen bird is usually less colorful than the male.
Word forms
| plural | hens |
|---|
Common combinations
- keep hens
- Many families in the village keep hens for eggs.
- a hen lays an egg
- The hen lays an egg nearly every day.
- a hen house
- The fox got into the hen house last night.
- a mother hen
- The mother hen gathered her chicks under her wings.
- a brood of hens
- A brood of hens scratched at the dirt in the yard.
Synonyms and how they differ
- chicken
- More general; it can mean the bird, either sex, or the meat, while hen specifically means a female bird.
- fowl
- A broader, slightly old-fashioned word for farm birds, often used in cooking or farming contexts.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: a hen or chicken?
a hen vs chicken
Chicken is the general word for the bird or its meat; hen is only the adult female bird.
Practice
The farmer said that ______ had laid three eggs that morning.
Choose one answer.
Only a hen (a female chicken) lays eggs. A rooster is male, chicken meat is food, and a hen house is the building, not the bird.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “a hen”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.