chick

English Online Dictionary. What means chick‎? What does chick mean?

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English chicke, chike(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?), variation of chiken (“chicken", also "chick”), from Old English ċicen, ċycen (“chicken”). Sense of "young woman" dates to at least 1860 (compare chit (“young, pert woman”))(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?). More at chicken.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɪk/
• Rhymes: -ɪk

Noun

chick (plural chicks or (obsolete) chicken)

2. A young bird.

   Synonym: fledgling

   Coordinate term: birdlet
3. A young chicken.
4. (dated, endearing) A young child.
6. (colloquial) A young, typically attractive, woman or teenage girl.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:girl, Thesaurus:woman
7. (military, slang) A friendly fighter aircraft.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

Verb

chick (third-person singular simple present chicks, present participle chicking, simple past and past participle chicked)

1. (obsolete) To sprout, as seed does in the ground; to vegetate.
2. To compress the lips and then separate them quickly, resulting in a percussive noise.

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Hindustani چق (ciq) / चिक (cik), ultimately from Persian چق (čeq).

Alternative forms

• chik

Noun

chick (plural chicks)

1. (India, Pakistan) A screen or blind made of finely slit bamboo and twine, hung in doorways or windows.
   • 1890, Rudyard Kipling, Letter to William Canton, 5 April, 1890, in Sandra Kemp and Lisa Lewis (eds.) Writings on writing by Rudyard Kipling, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 34, [2]

     Then, through a cautiously lifted chick, the old scene stands revealed […]

Synonyms

• chick-blinds

Derived terms

• chicked

Further reading

• Henry Yule, A[rthur] C[oke] Burnell (1903) “chick”, in William Crooke, editor, Hobson-Jobson […] , London: John Murray, […], page 193.

Yola

Alternative forms

• chicke

Etymology

From Middle English chike, from Old English ċicen. Cognate with English chick, and Scots schik.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɪk/

Noun

chick (plural chickès)

1. chicken

References

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 30