"hen's tooth" meaning in English

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

Noun

Audio: en-au-hen's tooth.ogg 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. 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)

Inflected forms

{
  "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Russian translations",
          "parents": [],
          "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"
    }
  ],
  "word": "hen's tooth"
}
{
  "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",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Russian translations"
      ],
      "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"
    }
  ],
  "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"
}

Download raw JSONL data for hen's tooth meaning in English (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). 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.