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prairie chicken†
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
1
a grouse, Tympanuchus cupido americanus, common on the southern prairies.
Quotations
1854
Among the edible furnished under their supervision, were 75 hams, 150 Turkeys, 400 Chickens, 250 Prairie Chickens . . . and 100 Smoked Tongues.
1958
. . . there's a colony of true prairie chicken living here. . . .
1966
At one time the prairie chicken lived in the southern counties of Essex and Kent [Ont.].
2
a species of grouse, Pedicetes phasianellus, found in the West and North.
See: sharp-tailed grouse
Quotations
1874
The country about us teemed with ducks, prairie chickens, and prairie plovers. . . .
1908
. . . we found it to be a wide and beautiful table-like prairie, begirt with aspens, on which we flushed a pack of prairie chickens.
1963
. . . Saskatchewan is the only province to adopt an official emblem in addition to a flower: in 1945 the prairie chicken, or sharp-tailed grouse, by enactment was made an emblem of Saskatchewan.
3 — Esp. B.C., Slang
a newcomer, especially a farmer from the prairies.
Quotations
1919
They would be good camps to send these prairie chickens to, and any other man who does not believe in union principles.
1953
So a brand-new deck was toted in,/ And eight of us sat in;/ Four of them were fallers,/ And the foreman Joe McGlinn./ The other a prairie chicken/ Who had come to the woods to toil. . . .
1961
Clod-hopper, we call him, and stubble jumper. And when he drives his fat new Buick to the Coast to winter among us we brand him "prairie chicken". . . .