do not count your chickens before they are hatched
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Do not assume something will happen until it has actually happened
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Đừng cho rằng điều gì sẽ xảy ra cho đến khi nó thực sự xảy ra
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: counting newborn chickens before they emerge from eggs
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “List of proverbial phrases” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “do not count your chickens before they are hatched” mean?
Do not assume something will happen until it has actually happened Literally: counting newborn chickens before they emerge from eggs
Is “do not count your chickens before they are hatched” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.