"hen's tooth" meaning in English

See hen's tooth in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-hen's tooth.ogg [Australia] Forms: hen's teeth [plural], hens' teeth [plural]
Etymology: Example of a jocularly non-existent phenomenon, as many birds lack any teeth (having developed a bill instead). Compare horsefeathers and when pigs fly. Etymology templates: {{m|en|horsefeathers}} horsefeathers, {{m|en|when pigs fly}} when pigs fly Head templates: {{en-noun|hen's teeth|hens' teeth}} hen's tooth (plural hen's teeth or hens' teeth)
  1. (idiomatic) anything not naturally occurring Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: rocking horse shit, rarity Related terms: unobtanium Translations (something rare or hard to find): пти́чье молоко́ (ptíčʹje molokó) (Russian)
    Sense id: en-hen's_tooth-en-noun-KvtpG3za Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for hen's tooth meaning in English (1.7kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "horsefeathers"
      },
      "expansion": "horsefeathers",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "when pigs fly"
      },
      "expansion": "when pigs fly",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Example of a jocularly non-existent phenomenon, as many birds lack any teeth (having developed a bill instead). Compare horsefeathers and when pigs fly.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hen's teeth",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hens' teeth",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "hen's teeth",
        "2": "hens' teeth"
      },
      "expansion": "hen's tooth (plural hen's teeth or hens' teeth)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "as rare as a hen's tooth"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "anything not naturally occurring"
      ],
      "id": "en-hen's_tooth-en-noun-KvtpG3za",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) anything not naturally occurring"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "unobtanium"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "rocking horse shit"
        },
        {
          "word": "rarity"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "ptíčʹje molokó",
          "sense": "something rare or hard to find",
          "word": "пти́чье молоко́"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-hen's tooth.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cd/En-au-hen%27s_tooth.ogg/En-au-hen%27s_tooth.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/En-au-hen%27s_tooth.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hen's tooth"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "horsefeathers"
      },
      "expansion": "horsefeathers",
      "name": "m"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "when pigs fly"
      },
      "expansion": "when pigs fly",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Example of a jocularly non-existent phenomenon, as many birds lack any teeth (having developed a bill instead). Compare horsefeathers and when pigs fly.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hen's teeth",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hens' teeth",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "hen's teeth",
        "2": "hens' teeth"
      },
      "expansion": "hen's tooth (plural hen's teeth or hens' teeth)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "unobtanium"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "as rare as a hen's tooth"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "anything not naturally occurring"
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) anything not naturally occurring"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-hen's tooth.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/c/cd/En-au-hen%27s_tooth.ogg/En-au-hen%27s_tooth.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/En-au-hen%27s_tooth.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "rocking horse shit"
    },
    {
      "word": "rarity"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "ptíčʹje molokó",
      "sense": "something rare or hard to find",
      "word": "пти́чье молоко́"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hen's tooth"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.