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Glite Dictionary
hen hawk

hen hawk

9.2
A bird that kills and eats chickens
  • noun
translation icon : halcón de gallinas
  • Farmers often worry that a hen hawk will attack their chickens.

Examples

  • Some rural communities once placed bounties on hen hawks to protect their poultry.

  • Farmers often complain about hen hawks stealing their chickens.

  • The presence of a hen hawk nearby made the hens restless all day.

  • The hen hawk swooped down on the farm.

  • Farmers often worry that a hen hawk will attack their chickens.

  • Some rural communities once placed bounties on hen hawks to protect their poultry.

  • The presence of a hen hawk nearby made the hens restless all day.

Synonyms

chicken hawk
vshen hawk
8.2

A hawk that eats or attacks chickens

has the same meaning but uses a different poultry noun in its name

Surface Forms

hen hawk singular
hen hawks plural

Morphology

hen + hawk

The meaning is directly compositional: 'hen' (chicken) + 'hawk' (bird of prey) yields a hawk that preys on hens or poultry, which a B1 learner who knows both words can readily infer. This noun+noun compound follows a common, cross-linguistic pattern for animal descriptors and contains no idiomatic or metaphorical shift, so its meaning is transparent.

Etymology

Hen hawk comes from a simple farm image: a hawk that takes hens from a yard or coop. That's why people used the name for 'a hawk that attacks poultry'.