Etymologically
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hen

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hen,[2] inherited from Old English henn,[3][4][5][6][7][8] from Proto-West Germanic *hannjo,[4] a feminine formed with a suffix causing i-mutation[3] from the word for the rooster, Proto-Germanic *hanô, the source of Old English hana (“rooster”).[4][6][9][10] Köbler reconstructs the feminine as Proto-Germanic *hanjō.[11] It is cognate with Old Frisian henn, Middle Dutch henne (modern Dutch hen), Middle Low German henne and Old High German henna (modern German Henne);[5][3][12] the masculine survives in Hahn, haan and the Scandinavian languages, as in Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌽𐌰 (hana) and Old Norse hani.[13][4][3][9] English lost the masculine word.[13] The rooster's name meant "singer",[13][9][4] from Proto-Indo-European *kan- (“to sing”),[4][14][5] the root of Latin canō (“to sing”), Old Irish canaid (“sings”) and Welsh canu (“to sing”);[9][3][10] Hesychius records Ancient Greek ἠϊκανός (ēïkanós, “rooster”), literally "early singer".[9][3][10][12] The OED compares Lithuanian gaidys (“rooster”), from giedoti (“to sing”), for the same idea.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The female of the domestic fowl: about 950, in the Lindisfarne Gospels;[5][15] earlier it appears in the compound edisc-hen (“quail”), about 700.[5] The OED's first record of the sense is in Byrhtferð's Enchiridion.[3]

Semantic evolution

Old English already named other birds with the word and a distinguishing element.[3] From the early 14th century hen meant the female of any bird;[3][4][13] later it was used for the female of some fishes and shellfish, such as the salmon and the lobster (1747).[3][16] Middle English had the proverbial nice as a nun's hen, overrefined or fastidious, and sing like a hen in snow, to sing miserably; a hen, especially a plucked one, was also a type of something worthless, as in Chaucer.[2][4][3] Applied to people, hen meant a woman or wife from about 1555 in the OED,[3] in 1562 in Green's Dictionary of Slang[17] and in the 1620s in Etymonline;[4] a cowardly or timid person from about 1613;[3] and a prostitute from 1632 to 1840.[3] In Scotland it has been an affectionate form of address to a girl or woman since 1768.[3][16] Hen party, a party of women, is recorded from 1887,[4] and since 1978 a hen is also a bride-to-be celebrating with her friends.[3] Mad as a wet hen dates from 1823.[4] Hen's teeth for something that does not exist dates from 1700 according to Cresswell,[18] but Etymonline finds it only by 1838.[4] Henpecked, of a man dominated by his wife, is recorded before 1680 in Samuel Butler's Remains, from hens pecking those below them in the flock;[5] henpeck followed in 1688.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 700 – in the compound edisc-hen, quail.[5]
  • c. 950 – the female of the domestic fowl.[5]
  • 1324 – the female of any bird.[3]
  • c. 1555 – a woman, a wife.[3]
  • c. 1613 – a cowardly or timid person.[3]
  • before 1680 – henpecked.[5]
  • 1747 – the female of a fish or crustacean.[3]
  • 1768 – Scottish, a form of address to a woman.[3]
  • 1887 – hen party.[4]
  • 1978 – a woman celebrating her coming marriage.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A female chicken, especially an adult one kept for laying eggs.[16][7][3]
  2. The female of any bird: a hen pheasant.[16][7][3]
  3. The female of certain fishes and crustaceans, such as the lobster.[16][3]
  4. (informal) A woman, especially one seen as fussy or gossipy.[16][7][3]
  5. (Scotland) An affectionate form of address to a woman or girl.[16][3]
  6. (British) A woman about to marry, celebrating with her friends; one of those friends.[3]
  7. as scarce as hen's teeth: extremely rare.[16][18]

Word family

  • hennish
  • hennishly
  • hennishness
  • henlike

Usage notes

Several unrelated words had the same spelling.[3][8][19] An adverb hen, "hence", from Old English heonan, survived in dialect until the 19th century, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.[3][8][19] In northern England a hen was money given by a bride or bridegroom so that the villagers could drink their health, and to drink the hen was to attend such a party; its origin is uncertain, and it may be a use of this word.[3][19] In Scots, to hen was to back out of an engagement or wager,[19] and in sailors' slang of the 1820s to act cautiously, from the timidity of the fowl.[17] German also has a word for the bird of either sex, German Huhn.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  15. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  18. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)