mother carey's hen

1. 1.

   medium-sized storm petrel

   SynonymsMother Carey's chickenOceanites oceanicus

   Broaderstorm petrel

   Part ofOceanites

Questions about mother carey's hen

What does mother carey's hen mean?

mother carey's hen means "medium-sized storm petrel".

What is another word for mother carey's hen?

Close synonyms include Mother Carey's chicken, Oceanites oceanicus. 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 mother carey's hen a common word?

mother carey's hen 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.