a little bird told me
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Meaning · English
A teasing way of saying that you do not intend to divulge how you knew something.
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
một cách đùa để nói rằng bạn không muốn tiết lộ làm thế nào bạn biết điều gì
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
‘ I say Charlie, a little bird told me that Joe there's been a bit crafty.
A little bird tells me — oh, St - Jean is full of them — you are dining every night at that great barrack of a house.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Personification (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “a little bird told me” mean?
A teasing way of saying that you do not intend to divulge how you knew something.
Is “a little bird told me” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.