| 词汇 | lock the barn door after the horse is stolen |
| 词源 | lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. The venerable rustic aphorism for “taking a precaution too late” hangs in there; it is still heard in cities that haven’t seen a barn for half a century. Back in England in the 1300s we would have recog- nized the expression, its first literary use being in John Gower’s Confessio amantis (1390): “For whan the grete Stiede Is stole, thanne he taketh hiede, and maketh the stable dore fast.” See barn. |
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