no spring chicken

Idioms & Phrases

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).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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