chicken feed

See also: chickenfeed, and chicken-feed

English

Alternative forms

• chickenfeed, chicken-feed, (Singlish, Sense 3, erroneously) chicken feet

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

chicken feed (countable and uncountable, plural chicken feeds)

1. Food (usually grain) given to poultry.
2. (idiomatic) A very small or insignificant quantity, especially of money.
   • 1916, Ring Lardner Sr., chapter 3, in You Know Me Al:

     "Some of them old skinflints has no heart Al but why should I fight with a old man over chicken feed like $10?"

   • 1998 August 28, Seak Poh Leong, The New Paper, Singapore, page 64:

     The 20 per cent cut is chicken feed compared to us having to pay Moore compensation for the remaining 16 months […]

3. (Singlish) A trivial or easy task; a piece of cake.
   • 1994, C. S. Chong, NS: An Air-Level Story, quoted in Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, A Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English, →ISBN, page 16:

     BMT [Basic Military Training] was literally ‘chicken feet’ compared to Officer Cadet School (OCS) […]

Translations

food for poultry

• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Danish: hønsefoder n, kyllingefoder n
• Dutch: kippenvoer (nl) n
• Finnish: kananrehu
• French: please add this translation if you can
• German: Hühnerfutter (de) n
• Hindi: please add this translation if you can
• Italian: bozzima (it) f
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: 닭모이 (dangmoi)
• Malay: please add this translation if you can
• Portuguese: ração para aves f
• Russian: корм для кур m (korm dlja kur), кури́ный корм m (kurínyj korm)
• Spanish: please add this translation if you can
• Swahili: please add this translation if you can
• Swedish: kycklingfoder n

small quantity of money

• Finnish: pähkinät pl, hilut pl
• French: fifrelin (fr) m, trois fois rien (fr)
• German: lächerliche Summe f
• Japanese: はした金 (はしたがね, hashitagane)
• Korean: 푼돈 (pundon)
• Portuguese: mixaria f
• Russian: гроши́ pl (groší)