Augean stables

idiom

Meaning

The stables where King Augeas kept his vast herd.

Origin

disputed origin

From Augean (“pertaining to Augeas”) + stables. Augeas was a legendary king of Elis in Greek mythology who owned numerous divine cattle (3,000 head, according to some later retellings) which produced a huge amount of dung in stables that had not been cleaned for over 30 years. The cleaning of the stables was the fifth of the twelve Labours of Hercules, which Hercules achieved by rerouting the Alpheus and Peneus rivers through them.

Examples

SIMPLE

Cleaning the messy basement felt like cleaning the Augean stables.

CONTEXTUAL

The new manager realized that fixing the company's corrupt accounting system would be like cleaning the Augean stables.

COMPLEX

The politician promised to reform the deeply entrenched bureaucracy, a task that many observers likened to the monumental effort of cleansing the Augean stables.

Anchors to

Related idioms1entry

01
close the stable door after the horse has bolted
To attempt to prevent a problem that has already occurred; to design and implement a preventive mechanism that is too late (after the first failure instead of before).

Last updated April 17, 2026