亡羊补牢 wáng yáng bǔ láo
Lose a sheep, mend the pen — better late than never.
The short answer
亡羊补牢 means to mend the fold after a sheep is lost: the loss has happened, but repairing the pen now saves the rest. It is China's “better late than never”.
The story
A shepherd's pen had a hole; a wolf took a sheep by night. A neighbor told him to fix the fence. The shepherd refused: the sheep is gone — what's the point? The next night, the wolf took another. This time he mended the pen, and never lost another sheep.
The idiom's home is the Strategies of the Warring States, where the counselor Zhuang Xin used the line on the King of Chu: warned earlier about his indulgent court, the king had shrugged; years of losses to the state of Qin later, Zhuang Xin returned with the sheep-pen line, 亡羊而补牢，未为迟也 — “mend the pen after losing the sheep, and it is not yet late”. The king gave him a post, and Chu bought some time.
What it means today
The idiom carries two halves. The loss is real — the first sheep is gone, the hack happened, the exam was failed. But the sentence is not about grief; it is about the remaining sheep. Chinese uses it to encourage prompt repair without pretending the repair undoes anything.
It is the standard quote in corporate post-mortems, security write-ups, and family peacemaking — anywhere the honest summary is “we were late, and that is still no reason to stay late”.
How to use it
Typical shape: 虽然亏了一些钱，但及时止损，亡羊补牢还不算晚, “some money was lost, but cutting losses in time — mending the pen — is not too late”.
In use
2 examples网站被攻击后才加强安全，虽是亡羊补牢，总算补救了。
Security was hardened only after the site was attacked — mending the pen late, but mended.
亡羊补牢，为时未晚，从今天开始改还来得及。
Lose the sheep, mend the pen — it's not too late; starting today still counts.
The characters
Explore individuallyIndividual character meanings do not always explain the meaning of the whole word.
This guide is original Dengdeng editorial content, offered under CC BY-SA 4.0. The linked dictionary entries adapt CC-CEDICT under the same license.