chook

English

Etymology

From Irish English chuck (call made to poultry or pigs), from Irish tsiug, tsiuc. Compare English buck buck.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃʊk/

• Rhymes: -ʊk

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

chook (plural chooks)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) A chicken, especially a hen.
   • 2005, Don Burke, The Complete Burke′s Backyard: The Ultimate Book of Fact Sheets‎, page 683:

     Worm chickens once every three months and, if an occasional lice problem occurs, spray the inside of the chook shed with Coopex.

   • 2006, Judith Brett, The Chook in the Australian Unconscious, in Peter Beilharz, Robert Manne, Reflected Light: La Trobe Essays, page 329,

     This little book, with its meticulous pencil drawings of chooks in mechanical contraptions and photos to show the machine in operation with a white leghorn called Gregory Peck, is evidence of both the sadism inspired by the chook′s comparatively flightless fate and the laughter we use to defend ourselves against the knowledge of that sadism.

   • 2011, Helen Maczkowiack, An Awkward Fit‎, page 21:

     She decided to dig her way under the fence into their chook house and had great fun running around and biting the necks of about eight chooks and leaving them half-dead and bleeding. The neighbour was furious, and unfortunately it was Dad′s birthday, so when he arrived home from work, Mum said ‘Happy birthday and^[sic] darling. Guess what? Your dog has half-killed most of the neighbour′s chooks.

   • 2025 June 7, The Australian Weekend Magazine, Australia, page 45, column 1:

     Letting your chooks clean the compost of curl grubs will make it fairly safe to put on the garden.

2. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) A cooked chicken; a chicken dressed for cooking.
3. (Australia, dated) A fool.
4. (Australia, Northern England) Affectionate name for a person
5. (Northern England) A chicken.

   Chooky egg ― Chicken's egg.

Derived terms

• chookas
• chook chaser
• chookers
• chookhouse
• chookie
• chookish
• chook pen
• chook raffle
• chook run
• chook shed
• chook wheel
• chookyard
• like a headless chook
• turbo chook

Translations

chicken — see chicken

Interjection

chook

1. (Australia) A call made to chickens.
2. An imitation of the call of a chicken.
   • 1875 July 23, Sydney Punch, page 1, column 1:

     Chook, chook, quack, quack, / Cock-a-doodle-doo; / All the ducks and the fowls / Admire me, they do.

Translations

call made to chickens

German: put (de)

Anagrams

• choko

Nigerian Pidgin

Etymology

Ultimately from Fula jukka. Compare Jamaican Creole and Bahamian Creole jook (“to stab”), Sranan Tongo dyuku (“to stab”), Grenadian Creole English djuck (“to stab”).

Verb

chook

1. to pierce, prick, penetrate, poke