Word.ws English Dictionary

count chickens

count chickens verb: to trust in something good that is not yet certain.

Verb

count chickens (third-person singular simple present counts chickens, present participle counting chickens, simple past and past participle counted chickens)

  1. To trust in something good that is not yet certain.
    • I was starting to count chickens, but then I had always worked on the principle that it was good to talk oneself out of being tired, or pessimistic.2001, Victor Smith, Open Cockpit over Africa, →ISBN, page 89
    • She says sometimes she'll take me in as a partner. Ah, I'd like that—but there, you mustn't count your chickens.2002, Miss Read, Thrush Green: A Novel, →ISBN
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see count, chicken.

Forms of count chickens

third-person singular presentcounts chickens
present participlecounting chickens
past participlecounted chickens
pastcounted chickens

Origin of count chickens

A reference to the proverb don't count your chickens before they're hatched

Questions about count chickens

What does count chickens mean?
Count chickens means to trust in something good that is not yet certain.
What part of speech is count chickens?
Count chickens is a verb.
What is the past tense of count chickens?
The past tense of count chickens is counted chickens.

Words near count chickens in the dictionary

  1. count angels on pinheads
  2. Count Branicki's mice
  3. Count Branicki's mouse
  4. count calories
  5. count cards
  6. count chickens
  7. count circle
  8. count circles
  9. count coup
  10. count down
  11. count downs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: count chickens (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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