chicken feed
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
A very small amount of money
Literally: food for chickens
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She would lie, steal, cheat for Oliver: burning a few hundred pounds was chicken feed.
Although clearly at odds with the ' socialist ' economy, all this is chicken - feed compared with a far more serious problem — nietroudovyie dokhody — or ' unearned income ' — as it is euphemistically called.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “chicken feed” mean?
A very small amount of money Literally: food for chickens
Is “chicken feed” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.