bird in the hand

English

Proverb

bird in the hand

1. Short for a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
   • 2000 September 6, Maze II, “the Seattle curse?”, in alt.sports.football.pro.dallas-cowboys‎^[1] (Usenet):

     Cowboys picks are more miss than hit. Galloway is a relatively young guy, so what the hey. Bird in the hand, right?

   • 2003, Robert C. Hereth, Money, Xlibris Corp., →ISBN, page 192:

     Elly had ratcheted up the pressure with her threats of leaving early. I had no other bites on the ad. “Bird in the hand” and all that . . . . So much for negotiating.

   • 2013, Andrew Taylor, “Catch-13”, in Martin Edwards, editor, Deadly Pleasures, Sutton: Severn House, →ISBN, page 219:

     ‘Look on the bright side,’ he said when he’d finished. ‘At least we got five hundred quid. Bird in the hand, eh?’

   • 2014, Dewey Lambdin, The King's Marauder, New York: Thomas Dunne Books, →ISBN, page 150:

     “Well, there is that, sir,” Harcourt replied after a moment to think that over. “Bird in the hand, and all that?”

   • 2018, Alex Goldfayn, Selling Boldly‎^[2], Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN:

     You're afraid of losing the customer. If I offer them this other product, they might stop buying that product for which they've come to me for years. Bird in the hand, right?

   • 2019, Tim Buckley, Cara is Missing, Kibworth Beauchamp: Matador, →ISBN, pages 276–277:

     A little bit of cash now means more to the boys than the promise of a fortune who knows when. Bird in the hand, and all […]