Skip to main content
chicken liver

chicken liver

5 1.3
The liver of a chicken that people eat
  • noun
  • /ˈtʃɪkɪn ˈlɪvər/
translation icon : hígado de pollo
  • For dinner, I prepared a delicious dish of sautéed chicken liver with onions.
  • chicken liver pâté
  • chicken liver mousse
  • fried chicken liver

Here's our first five ingredients, chicken, chicken broth, chicken liver, egg product, dicalcium phosphate.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • I went from pheasant under glass to chicken livers and rice.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • Laura and I, however, are aficionados of chicken liver cuisine!

    Blog text (29)
  • What if you just fry some chicken liver and beef fat?

  • Laura produced a dinner last evening that featured chicken livers.

    Blog text (29)
  • I do buy the chicken livers, though, and make an awesome pat.

    Blog text (12)
  • I also kind of want chicken liver parfait or French onion soup.

  • So if you like liver so much, do you ever pick up a carton of those chicken livers?

    Blog text (25)
  • He cuts into the chicken liver and prods around the inside.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • I happen to like liverwurst a lot and make chicken liver pâté sometimes and like that.

    Blog text (7)
  • Mama Le's homemade head cheese and chicken liver pâté.

    Blog text (27)

Synonyms

liver
vschicken liver
232 1.2

An animal organ eaten as food, often cooked and served

is limited to the organ from one bird species rather than all animals

Surface Forms

chicken liver singular

Morphology

chicken + liver

The meaning 'the liver of a chicken used as food' is directly compositional from 'chicken' (the animal) + 'liver' (an edible organ). This noun-noun compound follows a common and cross-linguistic pattern for animal parts/food, so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Chicken liver simply names the liver of a chicken, an organ people eat in many recipes. Because it is a plain, literal name, the term means 'the liver of a chicken' or the cooked food made from it.