Henny Penny

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English

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Noun

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Henny Penny (plural Henny Pennies)

  1. One who panics at the slightest provocation.
    Synonym: Chicken Little
    • 1984, Carol Chambers Collins, Our Food, Air and Water: How Safe Are They?, Facts on File, published 1984, →ISBN, page 27:
      The Henny Pennies who forecast doom and disaster thus have been proved hysterics who could use some est or encounter sessions to calm their anxieties.
    • 2001, Seymour B. Sarason, American Psychology & Schools: A Critique, Teachers College Press, published 2001, →ISBN, page 130:
      I know that in some quarters I am regarded as a kind of wet blanket, a Henny Penny predicting doom and gloom.
    • 2006, Rebecca Knuth, Burning Books and Leveling Libraries: Extremist Violence and Cultural Destruction, Praegar Publishers, published 2006, →ISBN, page 209:
      On April 11, in a tense news conference during a period when the looting dominated the news, Rumsfeld dismissed the media by calling them “Henny Pennies,” a reference to a children's tale in which the main character runs around, declaring that the sky is falling.

Further reading

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