chicken out

1. 1.

   remove oneself from an obligation

   “He bowed out when he heard how much work was involved”

   Synonymsback offpull outback downbow out

   Broaderretire

   Narrowerresile

Questions about chicken out

What does chicken out mean?

chicken out means "remove oneself from an obligation".

What is another word for chicken out?

Close synonyms include back off, pull out, back down, bow out. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is chicken out a common word?

chicken out is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.