hen
noun
Simple meaning
Female of certain aquatic animals e.g.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
hehnIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈhɛn
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Female of certain aquatic animals e.g. octopus or lobster
A female of other bird species, particularly a sexually mature female fowl.
Adult female bird
A female chicken (Gallus gallus), especially a sexually mature one kept for her eggs.
Adult female chicken
ukinformal
A bride-to-be, particularly in the context of a hen night.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Female of certain aquatic animals e.g. octopus or lobster
Used this way, hen is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use hen
- “The hen laid a fresh egg every morning in the coop.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.