"count chickens" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "don't count your chickens before they're hatched"
      },
      "expansion": "don't count your chickens before they're hatched",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "A reference to the proverb don't count your chickens before they're hatched",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "counts chickens",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counting chickens",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted chickens",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted chickens",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "count chickens (third-person singular simple present counts chickens, present participle counting chickens, simple past and past participle counted chickens)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "97 3",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001, Victor Smith, Open Cockpit over Africa, page 89",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Miss Read, Thrush Green: A Novel",
          "text": "She says sometimes she'll take me in as a partner. Ah, I'd like that—but there, you mustn't count your chickens.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, H. Levitt, The Furies",
          "text": "“Don't count your chickens,” Millie said to him.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Lee Child, Past Tense, page 280",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 April 5, Philip Haigh, “Pay deal a positive result”, in RAIL, number 980, page 3",
          "text": "At the risk of counting chickens, let's look beyond the end of these strikes. How does rail now recover public trust and confidence?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To trust in something good that is not yet certain."
      ],
      "id": "en-count_chickens-en-verb-AvW2aeic"
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see count, chicken."
      ],
      "id": "en-count_chickens-en-verb-qWre~AjX",
      "links": [
        [
          "count",
          "count#English"
        ],
        [
          "chicken",
          "chicken#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "count chickens"
}

{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "don't count your chickens before they're hatched"
      },
      "expansion": "don't count your chickens before they're hatched",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "A reference to the proverb don't count your chickens before they're hatched",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "counts chickens",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counting chickens",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted chickens",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "counted chickens",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "count chickens (third-person singular simple present counts chickens, present participle counting chickens, simple past and past participle counted chickens)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001, Victor Smith, Open Cockpit over Africa, page 89",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, Miss Read, Thrush Green: A Novel",
          "text": "She says sometimes she'll take me in as a partner. Ah, I'd like that—but there, you mustn't count your chickens.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006, H. Levitt, The Furies",
          "text": "“Don't count your chickens,” Millie said to him.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, Lee Child, Past Tense, page 280",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2023 April 5, Philip Haigh, “Pay deal a positive result”, in RAIL, number 980, page 3",
          "text": "At the risk of counting chickens, let's look beyond the end of these strikes. How does rail now recover public trust and confidence?",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To trust in something good that is not yet certain."
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see count, chicken."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "count",
          "count#English"
        ],
        [
          "chicken",
          "chicken#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "count chickens"
}