section_path: Nomenclature
section_name: Nomenclature
paragraph_text: Nomenclature
  
  Terms for chickens include:
  
  Chicken can mean a chick, as in William Shakespeare 's play Macbeth, where Macduff laments the death of "all my pretty chickens and their dam". The usage is preserved in placenames such as the Hen and Chicken Islands. In older sources, and still often in trade and scientific contexts, chickens as a species are described as common fowl or domestic fowl.