Idiom
close the stable door after the horse has bolted
Meaning
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).
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Adding a lock now is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
“They installed security cameras only after the robbery, which was just closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.”
“By implementing these strict safety protocols only after the catastrophic system failure, the management was merely closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.”
Examples
simple
“Adding a lock now is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
contextual
“They installed security cameras only after the robbery, which was just closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.”
complex
“By implementing these strict safety protocols only after the catastrophic system failure, the management was merely closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.”
Key words
Related idioms
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