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no spring chicken

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no spring chicken

Fig. a person well past youth; an old person. That actress is no spring chicken, but she does a pretty good job of playing a twenty-year-old girl. Jane: How old do you think Robert is? Jill: Well, he's certainly no spring chicken.

See also: chicken, spring

no spring chicken

No longer a young person, as in Sally's no spring chicken, but she plays a fine game of tennis. This unflattering expression, often applied to women, has been used since the early 1700s, although spring was omitted from the earliest citation (1711).

See also: chicken, spring