chicken run, noun phrase

Forms:
Also with initial capitals.
Origin:
EnglishShow more From English slang chicken cowardly + run, with a play on the meanings ‘an act of running’ and ‘a coop’.
colloquial
The chicken run: The exodus of people from South Africa because of fear for their future. Also attributive.
Note:
The term was first used in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
1977 Daily Dispatch 14 Dec. 12‘There’s no point in staying and watching rot set in when the blacks take over,’ a British-born engineer said..explaining why he is joining what has become known derisively as ‘The Chicken Run’.
1978 Sunday Times 5 Mar. 17‘I’ve decided to emigrate,’ he confessed,..‘I’ve had enough.’ ‘Not you too!’ I gasped. ‘Not the chicken run.’
1978 Daily Dispatch 19 May 5Many people leaving South Africa were on the ‘chicken run’ and he had no sympathy for them, Mr Brian Page..said in the Immigration Vote yesterday.
1985 B. Ronge in Fair Lady 27 Nov. 26Today’s times are not happy ones, and perhaps like mine, your mind is bent on escape. I don’t intend going on the chicken run, of course.
1987 M. Spring in Star 3 June 14Every few years there is an outbreak of chicken-run fever that sends thousands of South Africa’s brightest and best overseas to escape the ‘coming racial violence’.
1988 Fair Lady 3 Feb. 7 (letter)Whenever I hear emigration referred to as ‘the chicken run’ I want to scream.
1993 T. Betty in Sunday Times 25 Apr. 2Chicken run is a boon for business. The white flight from South Africa has boosted business for a local moving firm, making it the eighth largest international mover in the world.
The chicken run:The exodus of people from South Africa because of fear for their future. Also attributive.
Derivatives:
Hence chicken-runner  noun.
1986 G. McDougall in Style Nov. 8Your chicken-runners remind me of people I once saw come down to a beautiful, spotless beach. They littered it..then moved off to sit on a fresh, clean space.
1987 Frontline May 24A good percentage of South African immigrants are so-called Coloured and Indian folk...Even now, when they are apparently being elbowed aside by white chicken-runners, they still comprise between 10% and 20% of the Australian intake.
1989 H.P. Toffoli in Style Feb. 36One of those..not-to-be-taken-too-seriously-but-at-least-we-all-know-exactly-what-we’re-talking-about terms: like yuppie, kugel,..chicken runner and so on.
1994 Style Oct. 12Hypocritical outpourings from chicken-runners who decide to spend a short time in South Africa.
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19771994

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chicken-runner

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colloquial
chicken feather, noun phrasen. phr.chief, nounn.
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