sage hen
1
8.6
- noun
- /seɪdʒ hɛn/
- US
:
gallina de la salvia
- During the fall hunting season, many locals head to the plains to observe the majestic sage hen in its natural habitat.
Examples
-
We had prepared a hearty meal of sage hen, and we finished off with a cake made from the last of the precious chocolate brought from Iowa.
Fiction book (1997) -
The biologist studied the nesting habits of the sage hen across various regions of North America.
-
On our hike through the sagebrush, we were delighted to spot a sage hen foraging for seeds.
Synonyms
11
8.1
A plump bird with feathered legs found in northern countries and hunted for food
1
8.6
A large North American bird that lives in sagebrush and shows a mating dance
A large ground bird that lives in North American sagebrush areas
Surface Forms
Morphology
sage + hen
The compound is directly compositional: 'sage' (the plant or sagebrush habitat) + 'hen' (a female bird) denotes a bird associated with sagebrush, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer it refers to a type of bird. This is a regular noun–noun habitat/characteristic formation rather than an idiomatic shift, making the meaning predictable from the parts.
Etymology
Sage hen comes from where the bird lives and how it looks: it lives among sage bushes and was thought to look like a farm hen, so people called it sage hen. That's why the name means 'a large grouse found in the sagebrush areas of North America'.