| 释义 |
hen and chickens
(Beside the literal sense, this has the following transferred uses.)
1. A name for the Pleiades.
[1535Coverd. Job ix. 9 note, Some call these seuen starres, the clock henne with hir chekens.] 1613Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 68 That Constellation, called by the vulgar, the Hen and chickens, and of the learned Pleiades.
2. A name for several plants.
a. hen-and-chicken(s daisy: a cultivated variety or monstrous form of the daisy, in which smaller flower-heads grow from the edge of the main flower-head.
1794Martyn Rousseau's Bot. xv. 163 The main flower is surrounded by a set of very small ones..as in the Hen and Chicken Daisy. 1861Delamer Fl. Gard. 81 Proliferous or Hen-and-Chicken Daisies. 1884H. W. V. Stuart Egypt 164 The curious compound daisy called Hen-and-chickens.
b. A name for a variety of Polyanthus; also for a species of Houseleek (Sempervivum globiferum); also (locally) for Ground Ivy, London Pride, Columbine, Bird's-foot Trefoil, and Daffodil. (See Britten & Holland Plant-n.).
3. The name of a children's game.
1894A. B. Gomme Trad. Games Eng. Scotl. & Irel. I. 201 Hen and Chicken... The game is played in the usual manner of ‘Fox and Goose’ games. One is chosen to be the Hen, and one to be the Fox. The rest are the Chickens. 1969I. & P. Opie Children's Games in Street & Playground xi. 311 It was played..under the names ‘Fox and Chickens’..and ‘Hen and Chickens’. |