don't count your chickens before they're hatched

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English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

First attested in English in Thomas Howell's 1570 New Sonnets and Pretty Pamphlets in the couplet "Counte not thy Chickens that vnhatched be, / Waye wordes as winde, till thou finde certaintee", possibly deriving from similar medieval and early modern Latin fables and maxims.

Proverb[edit]

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.
    Synonyms: don't get your hopes up, don't sell the skin till you have caught the bear

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

See also[edit]

Further reading[edit]

  • Gregory Y. Titelman, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, 1996, →ISBN, p. 63.
  • Jennifer Speake, ed., Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, 6th ed., 2015, →ISBN, p. 60.