"no spring chicken" meaning in English

See no spring chicken in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Etymology: From the description of a young person as a spring chicken. Head templates: {{en-noun|-|head=no spring chicken}} no spring chicken (uncountable)
  1. (litotes) Said of a person who is no longer particularly young. Tags: uncountable Categories (topical): People Synonyms: no longer in the first flush of youth, coffin dodger, oldster, silver top, old person Translations (person who is no longer particularly young): ei mikään poikanen [masculine] (Finnish), ei mikään tyttönen [feminine] (Finnish), plus tout jeune (French), plus de la première jeunesse (French), kein junger Hüpfer (German), nem mai gyerek (Hungarian), mieć swoje lata [imperfective] (Polish), желторотый юне́ц (želtorotyj junéc) (Russian), talludito (Spanish)

Download JSON data for no spring chicken meaning in English (3.8kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the description of a young person as a spring chicken.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-",
        "head": "no spring chicken"
      },
      "expansion": "no spring chicken (uncountable)",
      "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"
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          "source": "w"
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English litotes",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English negative polarity items",
          "parents": [
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            "Terms by semantic function"
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
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        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He ran up three flights of stairs, and he's no spring chicken.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1908, Upton Sinclair, chapter 5, in The Money Changers",
          "text": "You know the world. You are no spring chicken.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of a person who is no longer particularly young."
      ],
      "id": "en-no_spring_chicken-en-noun-xqO-BN3Q",
      "links": [
        [
          "young",
          "young#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(litotes) Said of a person who is no longer particularly young."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "no longer in the first flush of youth"
        },
        {
          "word": "coffin dodger"
        },
        {
          "word": "oldster"
        },
        {
          "word": "silver top"
        },
        {
          "word": "old person"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "ei mikään poikanen"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "ei mikään tyttönen"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "word": "plus tout jeune"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "word": "plus de la première jeunesse"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "word": "kein junger Hüpfer"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "word": "nem mai gyerek"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "mieć swoje lata"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "želtorotyj junéc",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "word": "желторотый юне́ц"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
          "word": "talludito"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "no spring chicken"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the description of a young person as a spring chicken.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-",
        "head": "no spring chicken"
      },
      "expansion": "no spring chicken (uncountable)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
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        "English multiword terms",
        "English negative polarity items",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
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        "en:People"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He ran up three flights of stairs, and he's no spring chicken.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1908, Upton Sinclair, chapter 5, in The Money Changers",
          "text": "You know the world. You are no spring chicken.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "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"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Said of a person who is no longer particularly young."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "young",
          "young#English"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(litotes) Said of a person who is no longer particularly young."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "no longer in the first flush of youth"
        },
        {
          "word": "coffin dodger"
        },
        {
          "word": "oldster"
        },
        {
          "word": "silver top"
        },
        {
          "word": "old person"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "uncountable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "ei mikään poikanen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "ei mikään tyttönen"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "word": "plus tout jeune"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "word": "plus de la première jeunesse"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "word": "kein junger Hüpfer"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "word": "nem mai gyerek"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "mieć swoje lata"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "želtorotyj junéc",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "word": "желторотый юне́ц"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "person who is no longer particularly young",
      "word": "talludito"
    }
  ],
  "word": "no spring chicken"
}
{
  "called_from": "form_descriptions/1831",
  "msg": "unrecognized sense qualifier: litotes",
  "path": [
    "no spring chicken"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "no spring chicken",
  "trace": ""
}

{
  "called_from": "form_descriptions/1831",
  "msg": "unrecognized sense qualifier: litotes",
  "path": [
    "no spring chicken"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "no spring chicken",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 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.