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Glite Dictionary
chicken leg

chicken leg

5 1.0
The lower part of a chicken that people eat
  • noun
  • /ˈtʃɪkɪn lɛɡ/
translation icon : muslo de pollo
  • I grilled some delicious chicken legs for dinner last night.
  • chicken legs (drumsticks
  • skinless chicken legs
  • fried chicken legs

Was the Chief like had a gruff beard, a gruff voice, and was he like gnawing on a chicken leg?

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Examples

  • I've a chicken leg left over.

    Waking Ned (1998)

  • Can I have another chicken leg? "

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Do you mind if I have a chicken leg right away?

    Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025)

  • What a waste of a good chicken leg.

    Cop & ½ (1993)

  • Save me a chicken leg.

    Housos vs. Authority (2012)

  • The chicken legs, you eat those with your hands.

    The Paperboy (2012)

  • "Smells real good," Joan said, scarcely waiting for Emma to get her hand out of the way before she reached for a chicken leg.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • "Uneasy, Kelsey set down the half-eaten chicken leg."

    Fiction book (1995)

  • He chewed the cold diced potato and took a bite of the chicken leg.

    Fiction book (1999)

  • Myra helped the old woman disengage herself from the soaked tablecloth and saw that she was clutching a half-eaten chicken leg.

    Fiction book (1997)

Synonyms

drumstick
vschicken leg
12 1.6

The lower leg of a cooked bird like chicken that people eat

is specific to one bird species rather than many
chicken drumstick
vschicken leg
1 1.0

The lower part of a chicken's leg that people cook and eat

is used as the everyday name rather than the serving form

Surface Forms

chicken leg singular
chicken legs plural

Morphology

chicken + leg

The meaning 'the lower joint or drumstick of a chicken' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'chicken' (the bird / meat) with 'leg' (a limb or drumstick) with no metaphorical or idiomatic shift. This concrete, compositional food noun is cross-linguistically common and should be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

Chicken leg is a simple food name that joins chicken meaning the bird and leg meaning the lower joint, because this piece looks like a small leg. People often eat this 'drumstick', so chicken leg means that piece of meat.