Word.ws English Dictionary

counted chickens

counted chickens is the simple past and past participle of count chickens.

Meaning of count chickens

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
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see count, chicken.

Questions about counted chickens

What is counted chickens the simple past and past participle of?
Counted chickens is the simple past and past participle of count chickens.

Words near counted chickens in the dictionary

  1. counted
  2. counted against
  3. counted angels on pinheads
  4. counted calories
  5. counted cards
  6. counted chickens
  7. counted coup
  8. counted cross-stitch
  9. counted down
  10. counted in
  11. counted noses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: counted chickens (page history and authors); 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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