Meaning
A playful way of saying that you learned something from an informant you prefer not to name. It typically teases or gently signals that you know a secret, keeping the source anonymous rather than pointing to any literal messenger. Light and playful; suits teasing, secrets, and conversations with children rather than formal disclosure. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The Phrase Finder calls Ecclesiastes 10:20 - 'a bird of the air shall carry the voice' - the probable root, while stressing that the wording itself appears in no version of the Bible. The bird-messenger idea surfaces repeatedly in English print: John Heywood's 1546 proverb collection has a secret learnt 'by one byrd that in myne eare was late chauntyng', Shakespeare stages a singing bird pleasing the king in Henry IV Part 2, and Jonathan Swift wrote 'I heard the little bird say so' to Esther Johnson in 1711. Word Histories notes that Hugh Henry Brackenridge had explicitly linked the saying to Ecclesiastes by 1815; The Phrase Finder finds the closest early wording in Frederick Marryat's Peter Simple (1833), where 'a little bird has whispered a secret to me'. French has a parallel formula, 'mon petit doigt m'a dit', recorded from 1605.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a little bird said so
- a little bird whispered it to me
- a little birdie told me
- I heard it from a little bird
Usage Examples
- How did I know about the surprise party? A little bird told me.
- A little bird told me the merger talks resume on Monday, so treat that as rumour for now.
- She would not name her contact, saying only that a little bird had told her the inspection was coming.