1829 Belfast News Let. 6 Nov. Each should cry ‘Chick! Chick!’ and which ever of the parties the hen should go to, would be considered her right owner.

1943 Evening Jrnl. (Washington, Iowa) 16 Feb. 4/5 When Mrs Pierce goes out on the porch with more seed for them and calls Chick, Chick, Chick, they come hurrying to get it.

2013 Charleston (W. Va.) Gaz. (Nexis) 6 Jan. 1 c She would gather up her apron into a container, pour a handful of cracked corn into it, walk into the chicken yard and call ‘chick, chick, chick’.

1964 Las Vegas Sun 20 July 26/1 Dad will be glad he took the whole family pad to see ‘The Long Ships’..as some of Sidney Poitier's harem dolls are pips. (Tis indeed a chick flick, with kick.)

1988 Record (Bergen County, New Jersey) 23 Oct. (TV Record section) 69/1 Corman's ‘Black Mama, White Mama’ (1972), another chick-flick set in a slammer in the Phillipines [sic].

1993 Washington Times (Nexis) 1 Dec. c14 What with ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ updating the concept of the chick's flick in the national consciousness, the American Film Institute Theater has weighed in with a retrospective survey of the ‘women's movie’, as Hollywood understood and refined the genre during the 1930s and 1940s.

2008 Financial Times 19 Jan. (Weekend Suppl., Life & Arts section) 13/2 As chick flicks go, it is the pinkest and most wish-fulfilling of them all.

2008 New Yorker 25 Feb. 36/3 The best chick flick of the season is ‘Atonement’... Keira Knightley. She's not hard to look at for a while!

1988 D. M. Betterton Alma Mater iii. 113 Female Literary Tradition [sc. a college course, jokingly known as] Chick Lit.

1996 Boston Globe (Nexis) 22 May 67 I'm really very sad to see Wolcott decrying postfem chick lit as mere ‘popularity-contest coquetry’... He doesn't even like Cynthia Heimel or Julie Burchill, from what I can tell.

2000 I. Edward-Jones My Canapé Hell (2001) iv. 82 It was one of those chick-lit book launches about fat thighs, low self-esteem and vomiting.

2018 Medicine Hat (Alberta) News 7 June b2/5 She read it fearing it would end up like so much Chick Lit, with Kettle finding the man of her dreams and then learning to love herself.

1970 W. J. Craddock Be not Content xi. 123 Old bike being a great chick magnet, probably due to all the nasty stories concerning the evil boys who ride them.

1989 Texas Monthly Sept. 156/2 He was a chick magnet. He had to beat them off at the pool.

2004 Washington Post 5 June (Home ed.) c12/2 (caption) It means you're cool and a chick magnet and totally smart, too!

1600 P. Holland tr. Livy Rom. Hist. ix. xiv. 322 The Chick-master [L. pullarius]..sendeth mee word that the birds feed right.

1811 L.-M. Hawkins Countess & Gertrude IV. lxxvi. 192 ‘Hen-pecked’ she knew to be a periphrasis for wife-governed; but ‘chick-pecked’ she had never heard—it would now be very handy if brought into use.

1855 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 729/2 It is bad enough to be henpecked, but to be chickpecked, to be the slave of three daughters, and they possessed of the devil, appeared to me the lowest depth of human degradation.

1996 Sunday Times (Nexis) 22 Dec. They auctioned one [Buzz Lightyear toy] in Hull and some chickpecked father bid £90 for him, three times the retail value.

1698 J. Fryer New Acct. E.-India & Persia 92 Their Windows..are usually folding Doors, skreened with Cheeks, or Latises.

1824 R. Heber Jrnl. 30 Sept. in Narr. Journey Upper Provinces India (1828) I. xiv. 340 The check of the tent prevents effectually any person from seeing what passes within who does not come purposely up to peep.

1828 M. M. Sherwood Lady of Manor VI. xxix. 252 Peeping through the check by which my dressing-room was screened from the verandah.

1922 W. P. Drury Incendiaries xvii. 256 Peering swiftly through the slats of the chick, pouncing on the book as the bat swoops at a fly.

1998 S. Dé Selective Memory 15 The fragrance of damp khus wafting from the chiks covering the windows.

2016 Hindustan Times (Nexis) 28 Apr. ‘The blinds are designed in such a way that they do not allow dust particles or sunlight to pass through it,’ said Pappu Kumar, who sells bamboo chicks near Amar Colony.

1821 T. Carlyle Let. 12 June in Coll. Lett. T. & J. W. Carlyle (1970) I. 365 How am I, poor grasshopper as I am, to make my small chick be heard, among the many Bulls of Bashan that on every side fill the vallies with their lowing?

1901 F. H. Herrick Diary 17 July in Chautauquan (1902) Feb. 480/1 A whistled phe-phay! and sharp chick! chick! announce an approaching bird.

1922 Z. Grey To Last Man iv. 84 A hoarse-voiced old turkey gobbler was booming his chug-a-lug.., and the softer chick of hen turkeys answered him.

2008 Times 12 Apr. 70/5 It [sc. the grasshopper warbler] will stay on the post for a considerable time, making a sharp ‘chick’ note that is a little different from the comparable notes of birds such as robins.

1797 A. Geddes Battle of B—ng—r vii. 49 Swift as poultry when they hear the cry Of chick! chick! chick! chick! from their roostings fly.

1878 J. R. Baker Judith & Judah iii, in Sunday Afternoon 369/1 It [sc. a deathwatch beetle] goes chick-chick, tick-tick, chick-chick..all the time.

1992 R. Barber What Bible Teaches iv. 56 A little chick is hatched, and it goes chick, chick, chicking away in its little feathers.

1922 Congregationalist 18 May 629/2 ‘Clip, clip! chick, chick!’ went the axe.

1998 P. Theroux Sir Vidia's Shadow iii. 57 He worked on an Olivetti portable, one of those lightweight flat machines that seemed modern to me and went chick-chick-chick-chick.

2011 S. Cowing You will call me Drog vi. 47 My bedside clock went Chick tick chick tick chick tick.

1842 F. Bellew in Asiatic Jrnl. & Monthly Reg. 37 i. 48 Chicks are sequins, or chequins, abbreviated to chicks;—not fowls, as you imagine.

1863 G. O. Trevelyan Dawk Bungalow i. 9 Whenever master spends a chick, I keep back two rupees, sir!

1875 G. T. Chesney in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. June 702/2 ‘Can't do much harm by losing twenty chicks,’ observed the Colonel in Anglo-Indian argot.

1886 H. Yule & A. C. Burnell Hobson-Jobson (at cited word) I'll bet you a chick.

a1400 Gloss. W. de Bibbesworth (Paris) (1929) l. 470 Chicked [a1325 Cambr. spired, a1400 Corpus Cambr. comen, a1425 All Souls sproten; glossing Fr. germée].

1658 J. Evelyn tr. N. de Bonnefons French Gardiner 246 To discover that [onion seed] which is good put a little into a Porrenger of water, and let it infuse upon the hot Embers, and if it be good it will begin to Check and Speer.

1787 W. Marshall Rural Econ. Norfolk I. 247 A farmer..plowing in his oats with a very fleet furrow; and, after they have ‘chicked’, but before they appear above-ground, turns over the soil a full pitch.

a1825 R. Forby Vocab. E. Anglia (1830) Chick, to begin to germinate; as seeds in the earth, leaves from their buds, or barley on the couch in the malthouse.

1960 A. O. D. Claxton Suffolk Dial. 20th Cent. (ed. 2) 26 Seeds in the earth that have begun to germinate are said to have ‘chicked’.

a1642 H. Best Farming & Memorandum Bks. (1984) 109 That paste that is made of barley meale cracketh and checketh.

a1642 H. Best Farming & Memorandum Bks. (1984) 17 Soone as they are peeled wee carry them into some howse because the sunne shoulde not checke and rive them [sc. willows].

a1825 R. Forby Vocab. E. Anglia (1830) Chick, to crack, chap, chop, as the skin in frosty weather.

1970 H. Orton & P. M. Tilling Surv. Eng. Dial. III. ii. 488 When the young birds show signs of hatching out, you say the eggs are beginning..? [Norfolk] To chick.