Skin.

To sell the skin before you have caught the bear. To count of your chickens before they are hatched. In the South Sea mania (1720), dealing in bear-skins was a great stock-jobbing item, and thousands of skins were sold as mere time bargains. Shakespeare alludes to a similar practice:—

“The man that once did sell the lion’s skin

While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.”

Henry V., iv. 3.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Skin.

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