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no spring chicken

being old

TRANSLATION

no spring chicken = nicht mehr der/die Jüngste, nicht mehr ganz taufrisch

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

“Warren Buffett is no spring chicken, but the company is set up to go on in perpetuity when he is gone.”

Christoph Gisiger - The Market

Did you
know?

no spring chicken
idiom

- a person well past youth; an old person no longer young or youthful

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms


ORIGIN

In the early 1700s, farmers found that chickens born in the spring brought better prices than ‘old’ ones that had gone through the winter. When farmers tried to sell the old birds as ‘new spring born’, buyers complained that they were ‘no spring chicken’. The first recorded use of the phrase in its figurative meaning was in 1906.


FAMOUS QUOTE

“Age is a matter of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it doesn’t matter”.

Mark Twain


SYNONYMS

aged, elderly, over-the-hill, senior, long in the tooth, grey, past it, advanced in years, getting on, NO SPRING CHICKEN, venerable, been around, past one’s sell-by date, in one’s dotage, not as young as one was


PRACTICE OWAD in an English conversation, discuss something like:

“Martin’s NO SPRING CHICKEN, but he plays a fine game of tennis.”


HERZLICHEN DANK to all readers helping me keep OWAD alive with single or monthly donations at:

https://donorbox.org/please-become-a-friend-of-owad-3

Paul Smith

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