ˈguinea-hen
† 1. The turkey-hen or turkey. Obs.
| 1578 Lyte Dodoens ii. lii. 214 With white and blacke spots, lyke to the feathers of the Turkie or Ginny hen. 1588 R. Parke tr. Mendoza's Hist. China 322 Ginny hennes, otherwise called Turkey cockes, and in Spanish Pauos. 1601 Holland Pliny I. 296 The Ginnie or Turkey hens in a part of Africke called Numidia, be in great request. a 1637 B. Jonson Horace's Country Life 53 The Ginny-hen Could not goe downe my belly then More sweet than Olives. 1669 Worlidge Syst. Agric. (1681) 176 Turkeys, or Ginney-hens, or Cocks, are a melancholy Fowl. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 21 Fowls for Game they have several, the best of which is the Guinney Hen. |
2. The guinea-fowl, or the female of the same.
| 1599 H. Buttes Dyets drie Dinner K iv, The Græcians call these foules Meleagridae:..For (they say) Meleagers Sisters were transformed into Ginny-hens. 1703 W. Dampier Voy. III. 23 Guinea-Hens; which the Natives of these Islands call Gallena Pintada, or the Painted Hen. 1781 Pennant in Phil. Trans. LXXI. 76 The Guinea hens have long been imported into Britain. 1855 Tennyson Brook 126 He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens. |
† b. slang. A courtezan, prostitute. Obs.
| 1604 Shakes. Oth. i. iii. 317 Ere I would say, I would drowne my selfe for the loue of a Gynney Hen, I would change my Humanity with a Baboone. 1639 H. Glapthorne Alb. Wallenstein iii. iii, Yonder's the cock oth' game, About to tred yon ginny hen, they'r billing. 1708 Brit. Apollo No. 90. 2/2 You in an Honourable Amour,..cannot bear a little Cackling from a Guinea Hen! |
3. Comb., as guinea-hen flower, the fritillary, Fritillaria Meleagris; guinea-hen weed, a West Indian herb, the Petiveria alliacea.
| 1597 Gerarde Herbal i. lxxix. 122 The checkered Daffodill or Ginny hen flower, hath..flowers..checkered most strangely. 1629 Parkinson Paradisi vii. 44, I leaue to eueryone their owne will to call it in English eyther Fritillaria, as it is called of most, or the checkerd Daffodill, or the Ginnee Hen flower, or, as I doe, the checkerd Lilly. 1829 Loudon Encycl. Plants 297 Petiveria..is thought..to be coveted by Guinea-hens, and hence its vulgar name of Guinea-hen weed. 1866 Treas. Bot. 556/1 Guinea-hen flower, Fritillaria meleagris. |