Word.ws English Dictionary

don't count your chickens

don't count your chickens is the ellipsis of don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

Meaning of don't count your chickens before they're hatched

Proverb

don't count your chickens before they're hatched

  1. One should not depend upon a favorable (and typically overoptimistic) outcome to one's plans until it is certain to occur.
    • [...] Make Fools believe in their fore-seeing / Of things before they are in Being; / To swallow Gudgeons ere th' are catch'd, / And count their Chickens ere th' are hatch'd, [...][1663 (indicated as 1664), [Samuel Butler], “The Second Part of Hudibras. Canto III.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678...

Forms of don't count your chickens

alternative formdon't count your chicks

Questions about don't count your chickens

What is don't count your chickens the ellipsis of?
Don't count your chickens is the ellipsis of don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

Words near don't count your chickens in the dictionary

  1. don't buy green bananas
  2. don't call me sir, I work for a living
  3. don't call us, we'll call you
  4. don't cha
  5. don't change a winning team
  6. don't count your chickens
  7. don't count your chickens before the eggs have hatched
  8. don't count your chickens before they're hatched
  9. don't count your chickens before they've hatched
  10. don't count your chicks
  11. don't count your chicks before they hatch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: don't count your chickens (page history and authors); don't count your chickens before they're hatched (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “don't count your chickens.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/don%27t_count_your_chickens. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.