Chicken Emoji
U+1F414:chicken:About Chicken ๐
Chicken () is part of the Animals & Nature group in Unicode. Added in Unicode E0.6. Type on GitHub and Slack to use it. Click copy above to grab it, paste it anywhere.
Works in iMessage, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, Instagram, Twitter, Gmail, and every app that supports Unicode.
Often associated with animal, bird, ornithology.
Meaning varies across cultures, see cultural notes below.
Scroll down for the full story: meaning, trends, combos, and more.
How it looks
What does it mean?
The chicken emoji shows a side-profile bird with a red comb and wattle, usually facing left. It's the hen counterpart to ๐ and carries three loud cultural meanings: literal chicken (food, poultry, farming), cowardice ("don't be a chicken"), and the oldest joke in the English language.
For texting, ๐ mostly plays two roles. The first is cowardice. "Don't be a chicken" is one of the oldest durable English insults, used playfully to dare someone into action. The phrase goes back to Shakespeare#Etymology) and anchors the game-theory "chicken game") used to model nuclear standoffs, business brinksmanship, and two-car driveway standoffs. Sending a bare ๐ to someone backing out of plans is the playground version of that.
The second is food. Chicken sandwich wars of 2019, fried-chicken debates, nuggets discourse, "winner winner chicken dinner," the entire fast-food-Twitter ecosystem. ๐ shows up constantly in food content, often standing in for ๐.
Then there's the joke. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" first appeared in The Knickerbocker magazine in 1847. It's an anti-joke: the punchline "to get to the other side" is deliberately not funny, which is why it's still circulating 178 years later.
Approved in Unicode 6.0 (2010) as CHICKEN.
๐ splits cleanly across three social media lanes.
The dare and insult lane. "You won't do it ๐" or dropping a bare ๐ reply when someone flakes. This is the original meaning and still the most meme-ready usage. Twitter, Discord, group chats, and comment sections use it constantly to call someone risk-averse.
The food lane. The 2019 chicken sandwich wars between Popeyes, Chick-fil-A, and every other fast-food chain kicked off a lasting genre of chicken-content. Google searches for Popeyes' chicken sandwich grew 1000% after Chick-fil-A's August 19, 2019 subtweet. By year's end Popeyes' sales were up 38%. Over 20 fast-food brands added fried chicken sandwiches to their menus within two years. ๐ became the unofficial tag for fast-food takes.
The homestead lane. Backyard chicken keeping surged during 2020 lockdowns, with hatcheries sold out and new urban coop sales spiking. "Chicken TikTok" is a real subculture where people post breed comparisons, coop tours, and egg-yield updates. ๐ is the lane's default mascot.
Gaming adds a fourth. PUBG's "Winner winner chicken dinner") victory screen (2017) made ๐ shorthand for a battle-royale win. Fortnite and Call of Duty Warzone players use it too even though their games don't use the phrase.
Three main meanings. First, cowardice: "don't be a chicken," calling someone too scared to do something. Second, food: fried chicken, chicken sandwiches, nuggets. Third, "winner winner chicken dinner" after a gaming win. Context picks the lane. Bare ๐ in a dare context is almost always the cowardice reading.
The Bird Emoji Family
The Chicken Emoji Family
What it means from...
From a crush, ๐ is rarely flirty. It usually either calls you a chicken for not making a move (affectionate dare) or tags a food plan. "Dinner at that chicken place ๐" is different from "you won't text first ๐." The second one is a nudge.
Between partners, ๐ is usually food logistics (takeout orders, meal planning) or light roasting when one of you bails on a plan. "Movie tonight? ๐" after you said you'd go and then wavered is textbook playful pressure.
Friends run ๐ in its full range: calling each other chickens for anything (karaoke, roller coasters, confrontations), tagging fried-chicken plans, quoting "winner winner chicken dinner" after a ranked-game win, and chicken-joke replies. Most flexible in friend chats.
From family, ๐ is mostly literal or joking. Grandparents use it for farm photos or Sunday chicken dinner. Parents use it to roast their kids ("finish your homework ๐"). Siblings use it to trash-talk.
Work chats use ๐ for team lunches, chicken-wing Fridays, or very gently for someone dodging a tough call ("who's going to tell the client? ๐"). Low-risk emoji in most professional settings.
From a stranger in comments, ๐ reacts to either food content, farming content, or PUBG/Warzone victory clips. Comment-section ๐ on opinion posts is sometimes a cowardice call ("you won't say the real thing ๐").
Emoji combos
Origin story
The word "chicken" for a coward has been floating in English for roughly 400 years, well before the emoji. Shakespeare's Cymbeline (1611) includes the line "Forthwith they fly, chickens," referring to retreating soldiers. Decades later, "chicken-hearted" shows up in print as direct synonym for "cowardly."
The bird itself has a much longer pedigree. Chickens were domesticated from Southeast Asian red junglefowl at least 8,000 years ago, and today there are roughly 33 billion chickens alive on Earth at any moment. That makes the domestic chicken the most numerous bird species on the planet by an enormous margin. The most numerous wild bird, Africa's red-billed quelea, sits at around 1.5 billion. Chickens outnumber humans roughly 4 to 1.
The "Why did the chicken cross the road?" joke first appeared in The Knickerbocker magazine on March 1847, listed as a tongue-in-cheek "funny riddle" whose answer ("to get to the other side") was deliberately anticlimactic. The joke's staying power comes from its anti-humor structure: it's funny because it refuses to be funny. Linguists treat it as one of the earliest documented English anti-jokes.
The emoji landed in Unicode 6.0 (2010), shipped on Apple iOS 5 in 2011, and became a staple of food content after the 2019 chicken sandwich wars.
Design history
- 2010Chicken approved in Unicode 6.0 as U+1F414, part of the original emoji expansion batchโ
- 2011Ships on Apple iOS 5, alongside its rooster sibling ๐. Apple's hen faces left with a short tail
- 2017PUBG's "Winner winner chicken dinner" victory screen goes global, attaching ๐ to the battle-royale genre permanentlyโ
- 2019Popeyes launches its chicken sandwich on August 12. The Chick-fil-A subtweet on August 19 triggers the chicken sandwich wars. Popeyes' sales end the year up 38%โ
- 2020COVID-19 lockdowns drive a boom in backyard chicken keeping. US hatcheries sell out. ๐ becomes the mascot of urban homesteading TikTok
- 2024The Roblox "Gegagedigedagedago" dancing chicken nugget meme dominates TikTok from January to March, pairing with ๐ and ๐ in millions of commentsโ
Around the world
In the United States, ๐ is primarily food, cowardice slang, and fast-food discourse. Chick-fil-A and Popeyes dominate the cultural conversation. The chicken-as-coward metaphor is universally understood from playground age onward.
In the United Kingdom and Australia, "chicken" also means coward, but the food lane leans more toward Sunday roast and chicken tikka masala (the UK's unofficial national dish). "Having a chicken and chips night" is a specifically British casual-food reading of ๐.
In East Asia, ๐ is heavily food-coded. Korean fried chicken (KFC, not the brand) is the country's biggest export food genre. Japan's yakitori, Taiwan's popcorn chicken, and China's 5.3 billion farmed chickens put the bird at the center of daily cuisine. The cowardice slang doesn't translate directly.
In South Asia, chicken is the most-consumed meat, featured in tikka, biryani, butter chicken, and kebab traditions. The cowardice slang does translate (English influence).
In Latin America, "gallina" (hen) is also slang for a coward, mirroring the English use. Caldo de gallina and arroz con pollo are regional staples.
In gaming culture, ๐ is universally the "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner)" victory emoji, originating in PUBG (2017) but now used across Fortnite, Warzone, Apex Legends, and battle-royale genres.
From Depression-era alley craps and Las Vegas casinos, where a standard $2 bet paid out enough to buy a $1.98 chicken dinner. Winning meant you could eat. PUBG's 2017 victory screen made the phrase globally famous, and battle-royale gamers use it across Fortnite, Warzone, and Apex now too.
Popeyes launched its chicken sandwich on August 12, 2019. A week later Chick-fil-A subtweeted that its own sandwich was the "original," Popeyes replied "y'all good?", and the whole internet split into camps. Google searches for Popeyes' sandwich rose 1000%, stores sold out, and Popeyes ended 2019 with 38% higher sales. 20+ other chains launched their own chicken sandwiches within two years.
About 33 billion at any given moment, making the domestic chicken the most numerous bird species on Earth by a huge margin. China alone has over 5.3 billion. Roughly 4 chickens for every human on the planet.
Often confused with
๐ is a rooster (male chicken, long tail, tall comb). ๐ is a generic chicken or hen (shorter tail, smaller comb). ๐ is morning, France, zodiac. ๐ is food, cowardice, fast food.
๐ is a rooster (male chicken, long tail, tall comb). ๐ is a generic chicken or hen (shorter tail, smaller comb). ๐ is morning, France, zodiac. ๐ is food, cowardice, fast food.
๐ฆ is a turkey (Thanksgiving, US). ๐ is a chicken (everywhere, all year). Both are Gallinaceous birds, but culturally they don't overlap much.
๐ฆ is a turkey (Thanksgiving, US). ๐ is a chicken (everywhere, all year). Both are Gallinaceous birds, but culturally they don't overlap much.
๐ is a cooked drumstick, good for food content. ๐ is the live bird. Use ๐ when talking about eating, ๐ when talking about the animal or the slang.
๐ is a cooked drumstick, good for food content. ๐ is the live bird. Use ๐ when talking about eating, ๐ when talking about the animal or the slang.
๐ is a generic chicken or hen (shorter tail, smaller comb, side profile). ๐ is a rooster: male chicken with prominent tail feathers, taller comb, and a much heavier cultural load (French national symbol, Chinese zodiac, morning/dawn meaning). ๐ carries the cowardice slang and food references.
Do's and don'ts
- โUse for food content: fried chicken, sandwiches, nuggets, wings
- โUse playfully to dare someone or call their bluff
- โUse for backyard chicken keeping and homesteading posts
- โPair with ๐ ๐ฃ ๐ค ๐ฅ for full-lifecycle farm content
- โUse after a battle-royale win ("winner winner chicken dinner")
- โDon't use ๐ as a cowardice insult in serious conflicts. It's playground-coded and trivializes real disagreements
- โDon't confuse ๐ with ๐ when posting about French sports or Chinese zodiac. Those are rooster territory
- โDon't use it to dismiss someone's legitimate risk-aversion (health concerns, safety calls). The dare reading assumes everyone shares your risk appetite
Calling someone a "chicken" or sending ๐ means calling them a coward, someone too scared to do something. It's one of the oldest English-language insults, showing up in Shakespeare's Cymbeline in 1611 and still in heavy rotation on playgrounds. It works because nobody wants to be the chicken.
It's shorthand for "winner winner chicken dinner," the PUBG victory screen phrase from 2017. Battle royale gamers across PUBG, Fortnite, Call of Duty Warzone, and Apex Legends use it to celebrate wins, even when their specific game doesn't use the phrase natively.
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Fun facts
- โขThere are roughly 33 billion chickens on Earth, making the domestic chicken the most numerous bird species on the planet. Roughly 4 chickens per human.
- โขChina alone has over 5.3 billion chickens, the largest stock of any country. Approximately 46% of global chickens live in Asia.
- โขThe chicken-cross-road joke first appeared in The Knickerbocker magazine in March 1847, making it the oldest documented English anti-joke still in wide circulation.
- โข"Winner winner chicken dinner" originated in Depression-era alley craps and Las Vegas casinos, where a $2 bet paid out enough for a $1.98 chicken dinner. PUBG made it globally famous in 2017.
- โขThe chicken sandwich wars of 2019 generated a 1000% search spike for Popeyes, a 38% sales jump by year-end, and 20+ copycat launches within two years.
- โขIn game theory), "chicken" describes a confrontation where whoever swerves first is the coward. It's been used to model nuclear standoffs, corporate negotiations, and two-car driveway standoffs.
- โขThe UK's Robert Plot documented chicken breed descriptions in 1680. Modern breeds like the Rhode Island Red, Leghorn, and Plymouth Rock are all 19th-century creations from selective breeding.
- โขBackyard chicken keeping exploded during COVID-19 lockdowns. US hatcheries reported sold-out inventory in spring 2020, and urban homesteading TikTok became a permanent subculture.
In pop culture
- โข"Why did the chicken cross the road?" (1847 to present). First published in The Knickerbocker magazine in March 1847. Arguably the most durable joke in English.
- โขPlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, "Winner winner chicken dinner" (2017). The victory screen message) made the Depression-era Vegas phrase globally famous. PUBG's developer heard the line and included it.
- โขChicken Sandwich Wars (2019). Popeyes vs Chick-fil-A vs McDonald's kicked off the biggest fast-food Twitter war in recent memory. Popeyes sold out, and 20+ copycat sandwiches launched within two years.
- โขChicken Run (2000 and 2023). Aardman Animations' claymation chicken-prison-break films grossed $225M (original) and released a Netflix sequel in December 2023.
- โขChicken Little (Henny Penny, 1840s to present). The folklore tale of the hysterical chicken convinced the sky is falling has been told for nearly two centuries and got a 2005 Disney film. The name is shorthand for an alarmist.
- โขKFC's "finger lickin' good" (1956 to present). Colonel Sanders' catchphrase is one of the most famous slogans in fast-food history. KFC ran 4,000+ restaurants worldwide by the 1990s, cementing chicken as a global fast-food category.
Trivia
For developers
- โขChicken is , added in Unicode 6.0 / Emoji 1.0 (2010). Part of the foundational 2010 emoji batch.
- โขShortcodes: on most platforms.
- โขEmoji Kitchen supports ๐ mashups on Android. Blends well with ๐, ๐ฃ, ๐ฅ, and ๐.
- โขFor fast-food UIs, pair ๐ with ๐ฅช ๐ ๐ถ๏ธ to cover the chicken-sandwich-wars vocabulary.
- โขFor gaming victory screens, pair ๐๐ is the universal "chicken dinner" signal.
Unicode 6.0 in 2010 as CHICKEN. It shipped on Apple iOS 5 in 2011 as part of the first major emoji batch alongside its rooster sibling ๐.
See the full Emoji Developer Tools guide for regex patterns, encoding helpers, and more.
What does ๐ mean to you first?
Select all that apply
- Chicken Emoji (Emojipedia) (emojipedia.org)
- Why did the chicken cross the road? (Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org)
- Chicken (game theory) (Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org)
- Chicken (Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org)
- Chicken sandwich wars (Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org)
- CNBC chicken sandwich wars (cnbc.com)
- Washington Post chicken sandwich year (washingtonpost.com)
- Roblox chicken nugget meme (Know Your Meme) (knowyourmeme.com)
- World's most numerous bird (Carnegie Museum) (carnegiemnh.org)
- Chickens (FAO) (fao.org)
- PUBG (Wikipedia) (wikipedia.org)
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