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View synonyms for chicken out

chicken out

verb

  1. informal.
    intr, adverb to fail to do something through fear or lack of conviction
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Idioms and Phrases

Back out from fear, lose one's nerve, as in In the end I chickened out and took the easier route down the mountain . Chicken is a popular synonym for “cowardly,” a usage arising in the 1600s and 1700s but then apparently abandoned until the 20th century. [ Slang ; c. 1930]
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Example Sentences

If the juices run clear, you can take the chicken out of the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Well, I'll bet you can't get a chicken out of our barn 'thout our Dog gettin' you, Mr. Smarty.

It was like the grip of home, and the lost Earth, and the fear that he would chicken out and return.

The puzzle was to make a chicken out of an orange with four cuts of the scissors and the prick of a pin.

All I need do is to wait right here around the corner, and if he brings a chicken out, I'll simply tell him to drop it.

With amusing bluntness he sent the chicken out to be killed before he ate it, complaining that the eggs were not hard enough.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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