From Old English 'cicen' (young fowl), a diminutive of the word for cock — originally meant 'chick,' then expanded to replace 'fowl.'
A domestic fowl kept for its eggs or meat; the flesh of this bird as food.
From Old English 'cicen' meaning 'young fowl,' from Proto-Germanic *kiukīną, a diminutive of *kukkaz (cock). The word originally meant 'chick' — the young bird — and only later replaced 'fowl' as the general term. Key roots: *kukkaz (Proto-Germanic: "cock (male fowl