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hen's tooth

noun

Etymology

Example of a jocularly non-existent phenomenon, as many birds lack any teeth (having developed a bill instead). Compare horsefeathers and when pigs fly.

Definitions

  1. Anything not naturally occurring.

    • as rare as a hen's tooth
    • Indeed, many of the Dutch in Pernambuco were won over to the Church of Rome, ‘whereas converts from Catholicism to Calvinism were as rare as hens’ teeth’.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for hen's tooth. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA