count chickens

English

Etymology

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

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.
   • 2001, Victor Smith, Open Cockpit over Africa, →ISBN, page 89:

     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.

   • 2002, Miss Read, Thrush Green: A Novel, →ISBN:

     She says sometimes she'll take me in as a partner. Ah, I'd like that—but there, you mustn't count your chickens.

   • 2006, H. Levitt, The Furies, →ISBN:

     “Don't count your chickens,” Millie said to him.

   • 2018, Lee Child, Past Tense, →ISBN, page 280:

     First sheer relief welled and bloomed, like a tide, and then buzzing excitement took over, a little breathless, a little gulped, to be resisted, to be controlled, because nothing was certain yet, because disappointment was always possible, because chickens should not be counted.

   • 2023 April 5, Philip Haigh, “Pay deal a positive result”, in RAIL, number 980, page 3:

     At the risk of counting chickens, let's look beyond the end of these strikes. How does rail now recover public trust and confidence?

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