Definition of "chickening" [chickening]

• Present participle of chicken. (verb)

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• "And it's that part of the equation that most written SF is chickening out of: it's de rigueur to show how awfully bad things are going, and how much worse they will get, but almost nowhere do you see SF that thinks about how to * solve* those problems."
• "Misha wasn't buying it — and as the greatest regret of Viko's current incarnation was "chickening out" or his leap from the top of one of the buildings in Albany's Egg Plaza the summer after 8th grade and opting, instead, for a "pity me, save me" fake suicide attempt in his parent's mansion in Loudonville , he felt the time had come at last to do the deed."
• "Now, Mr. Vargas Llosa's son, Alvaro, also a writer, accuses Mr. de Soto of "chickening out" of a proposed debate between the two of them."