Pecking order
Posted by David FG on May 29, 2011 at 08:01
In Reply to: Pecking order posted by Buford on May 25, 2011 at 06:59:
: Where did "pecking order" and "hen pecked" originate? Same source but different meanings?
As far as 'pecking order' goes:
From the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997): "The famous study made by biologists W.C. Allee in the 1920s establishes that the pecking order among hens has a definite prestige pattern, hens, like many humans, freely peck at other hens below their rank and submit to pecking from those above them."
'Hen-pecked' alludes to the supposedly unusual situation in which a hen would dominate a cock/rooster by pecking at him.
DFG