chick
chick — noun
1. A young bird that has recently hatched from its egg; the word is most often used
A young bird that has recently hatched from its egg; the word is most often used for the babies of chickens and other farm birds.
Farmer Wu gently picked up the yellow chick and placed it under the heat lamp.
collocation: chick + heat lamp (farm setting)
Mrs. Chen's class watched the hen leading her chicks across the farmyard.
collocation: hen + her chicks (family grouping)
The mother robin dropped a worm into the open beak of her hungriest chick.
Last spring, the old speckled hen hatched ten fluffy chicks in the barn.
Each chick huddles under its mother's feathers to stay warm during cold nights.
用法筆記
Often used together with 'hen' (the mother) in farm-related contexts. The possessive pairing 'mother hen and her chicks' is a common set phrase.
2. A word that describes a young female adult; many people now view it as insulting
A word that describes a young female adult; many people now view it as insulting or degrading. The safest choice is to avoid it and say 'young woman' or address the person by name.
The newspaper article warned office workers not to use the word 'chick' at work.
meta-discourse: discussing the word's appropriateness
Aunt Rosa told her nephew that calling women chicks is disrespectful and old-fashioned.
register warning: disrespectful register
The HR manager said calling a female colleague a chick violates company policy.
During the workshop, the speaker discussed why the term 'chick' upsets so many women.
A staff notice reminded everyone that 'chick' is not okay for addressing colleagues.
- young woman
neutral and respectful; always a safe alternative
- girl
can be neutral for children but may sound patronizing for adult women depending on context
- lady
polite and formal, though can feel old-fashioned in some situations
用法筆記
Frequently appears in fixed compound nouns such as 'chick flick' (a film intended mainly for women) and 'chick lit' (novels aimed at women readers), where the offensive connotation is weaker or neutralized by genre-label convention.