hens' teeth
Proverbially nonexistent items
Hens' teeth is a phrase for something that doesn't exist or is impossibly rare—hens being birds, and birds having no teeth.
Usually appears in comparisons: Parking spots downtown are as rare as hens' teeth.
The expression emphasizes scarcity by pointing to something that cannot be found at all.
- once in a blue moonExtremely infrequently
- blue moonUncommon lunar event
- rare birdUnusual person or thing
- dodo birdExtinct flightless Mauritian fowl
- needle in a haystackExtremely difficult thing to locate
diamond in the rough · infrequent · scarce · uncommon · few and far between · exceptional · rare · four leaf clover · elusive · black swan · nonexistent · vestigial structures · out of the ordinary · singular · one-of-a-kind · unparalleled · unique · white whale
hens' teethdime a dozen
Abundant and unremarkable
common as dirt · a dime a dozen · commonplace · ubiquitous · abundant
hens' teethsure thing
Guaranteed outcome or agreement
certainty · given · guaranteed · inevitable · foregone conclusion