hen

Other forms of hen

plural

hens·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about hen

What does hen mean?

hen means "adult female chicken". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in hen?

hen has 1 syllable: hen. In IPA it is /ˈhɛn/.

What is another word for hen?

Close synonyms include biddy. 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 hen a common word?

hen is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.