turkey-henn.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > food > animals for food > fowls > [noun] > guinea-fowl
turkey-hen1552
turkey-cock1577
guinea-hen1578
turkey1655
the world > animals > birds > order Galliformes (fowls) > [noun] > family Numididae > member of (guinea-fowl) > female
turkey-hen1552
guinea-hen1599
pearl hen1840
1552 T. Cooper Bibliotheca Eliotæ (rev. ed.) Meleagrides, byrdes, whiche we doo call hennes of Genny, or Turkie hennes.
1578 H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball ii. lii. 214 Called..Flos Meleagris..from a kinde of birde..whose feathers be speckled..not with Violet speckes, but with white and blacke spots, lyke to the feathers of the Turkie or Ginny hen, which is called Meleagris auis: some do also cal this flower Fritillaria.
1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World I. 296 The Ginnie or Turkey hens in a part of Africke called Numidia, be in great request.
2. The female of the turkey.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > birds > order Galliformes (fowls) > [noun] > member of Meleagrididae (turkey) > female
turkey-hen1555
guinea-hen1578
1555 R. Eden tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde iii. xi. f. 158v They brought..eyght of their hennes beynge as bygge as peacockes, of brownyshe coloure, and not inferiour to peacockes in pleasaunte tast. [margin] Turky hens.
1580 C. Hollyband Treasurie French Tong Poule d'Inde, a Turkie henne.
1592 in J. Harland House & Farm Accts. Shuttleworths (1856) I. 72 Towe turkes and onne turkie henne vijs.
1761 G. Edwards in Philos. Trans. 1760 (Royal Soc.) 51 836 Whether this bird be produced from a turkey-hen and a cock-pheasant, or from a turkey-cock and hen-pheasant, no one knows.
1844 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm II. 710 When a turkey-hen is seen disposed to lay, a nest should be made for her in the hatching-house.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1915; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
<
n.1552