See spring chicken on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "spring",
"3": "chicken"
},
"expansion": "spring + chicken",
"name": "com"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From spring + chicken. First appears c. 1765 in The Public Advertiser.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "spring chickens",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "spring chicken (plural spring chickens)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "Cooking",
"orig": "en:Cooking",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A chicken for eating while it is still young."
],
"id": "en-spring_chicken-en-noun-5OOGHWCx",
"links": [
[
"cooking",
"cooking#Noun"
],
[
"chicken",
"chicken"
],
[
"eat",
"eat"
],
[
"young",
"young"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(cooking) A chicken for eating while it is still young."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"english": "'young onion' sense",
"translation": "'young onion' sense",
"word": "spring onion"
}
],
"topics": [
"cooking",
"food",
"lifestyle"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "39 61",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "18 82",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with 1 entry",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "9 91",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Pages with entries",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "0 100",
"kind": "other",
"langcode": "en",
"name": "People",
"orig": "en:People",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
31,
45
]
],
"ref": "1908, Upton Sinclair, chapter 5, in The Money Changers:",
"text": "You know the world. You are no spring chicken.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
129,
143
]
],
"ref": "1943 May 10, “The Pot Boils”, in Time:",
"text": "A real candidate arose to challenge dapper Robert Rice (\"Buncombe Bob\") Reynolds, aging coxcomb of the Senate. The candidate, no spring chicken himself: tall, lean Clyde Roark Hoey (pronounced Hooey), 65, one of the most popular Governors the state ever had.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
76,
90
]
],
"ref": "1981 November 23, “Newest Sub, Oldest Sailor”, in Time:",
"text": "He doubtless hoped for a sympathetic ruling from President Reagan, at 70 no spring chicken himself.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
231,
245
]
],
"ref": "2014, William Friedman, Hearts and Minds, page 64:",
"text": "It is a special day for you indeed, for both of us, bodies incorporeal, receptive always to life's joys appreciative in any way I can, you like to remind me were both getting old; I'd remind you that, at fifty-five, you're still a spring chicken.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person who is still young."
],
"id": "en-spring_chicken-en-noun-jsAJtI19",
"links": [
[
"young",
"young"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, chiefly in negative constructions) A person who is still young."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in negative constructions"
],
"tags": [
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-spring chicken.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a4/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a4/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav.ogg",
"tags": [
"US"
]
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"The Public Advertiser"
],
"word": "spring chicken"
}
{
"categories": [
"English compound terms",
"English countable nouns",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
"Pages with 1 entry",
"Pages with entries",
"en:People"
],
"etymology_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "spring",
"3": "chicken"
},
"expansion": "spring + chicken",
"name": "com"
}
],
"etymology_text": "From spring + chicken. First appears c. 1765 in The Public Advertiser.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "spring chickens",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "spring chicken (plural spring chickens)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"english": "'young onion' sense",
"translation": "'young onion' sense",
"word": "spring onion"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"en:Cooking"
],
"glosses": [
"A chicken for eating while it is still young."
],
"links": [
[
"cooking",
"cooking#Noun"
],
[
"chicken",
"chicken"
],
[
"eat",
"eat"
],
[
"young",
"young"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(cooking) A chicken for eating while it is still young."
],
"topics": [
"cooking",
"food",
"lifestyle"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English informal terms",
"English terms with quotations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned"
],
"examples": [
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
31,
45
]
],
"ref": "1908, Upton Sinclair, chapter 5, in The Money Changers:",
"text": "You know the world. You are no spring chicken.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
129,
143
]
],
"ref": "1943 May 10, “The Pot Boils”, in Time:",
"text": "A real candidate arose to challenge dapper Robert Rice (\"Buncombe Bob\") Reynolds, aging coxcomb of the Senate. The candidate, no spring chicken himself: tall, lean Clyde Roark Hoey (pronounced Hooey), 65, one of the most popular Governors the state ever had.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
76,
90
]
],
"ref": "1981 November 23, “Newest Sub, Oldest Sailor”, in Time:",
"text": "He doubtless hoped for a sympathetic ruling from President Reagan, at 70 no spring chicken himself.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"bold_text_offsets": [
[
231,
245
]
],
"ref": "2014, William Friedman, Hearts and Minds, page 64:",
"text": "It is a special day for you indeed, for both of us, bodies incorporeal, receptive always to life's joys appreciative in any way I can, you like to remind me were both getting old; I'd remind you that, at fifty-five, you're still a spring chicken.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A person who is still young."
],
"links": [
[
"young",
"young"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(informal, chiefly in negative constructions) A person who is still young."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in negative constructions"
],
"tags": [
"informal"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-spring chicken.wav",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a4/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/a/a4/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-spring_chicken.wav.ogg",
"tags": [
"US"
]
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"The Public Advertiser"
],
"word": "spring chicken"
}
Download raw JSONL data for spring chicken meaning in All languages combined (3.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-08-07 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-08-05 using wiktextract (d9fa233 and 9e92f4b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.