Adult female domestic fowls, especially chickens, kept for laying eggs or meat production. The plural form of hen.
From Old English 'henn', feminine form of 'hana' (rooster), from Proto-Germanic 'hanjon'. The word has remained remarkably stable across Germanic languages for over a millennium. Originally distinguished grammatically by gender, with 'hen' specifically referring to the female bird, while 'cock' or 'rooster' referred to males.
Hens have contributed idioms like 'rare as hen's teeth' (since birds don't have teeth) and 'mad as a wet hen' (reflecting their distressed behavior when soaked). Remarkably, a hen will lay eggs with or without a rooster present, but only fertilized eggs can develop into chicks - a biological fact that has shaped human agriculture for thousands of years.
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