Word.ws English Dictionary

better late than never

better late than never proverb: it is better to do something late, than to never do it at all.

Proverb

better late than never

  1. It is better to do something late, than to never do it at all.
    • [after seeing the ghost of the Titanic arrive in New York Harbor] Well, better late than never.1989 June 16, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, directed by Ivan Reitman, Ghostbusters II, spoken by Dock Supervisor (Cheech Marin)

better late than never meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Arabic and Persian

better late than never in Hindi

it's better to do something late, than to never do it at all
जब जाति तब सवेरे jab jāti tab savere

better late than never in Urdu

it's better to do something late, than to never do it at all
دیر آئے درست آئے der ā'ye durust ā'ye

better late than never in Arabic

it's better to do something late, than to never do it at all
أَن يَأْتِي مُتَأَخِّرًا خَيْر مِن أَلَّا يَأْتِي أَبَدًا ʔan yaʔtī mutaʔaḵḵiran ḵayr min ʔallā yaʔtī ʔabadan

better late than never in Persian

it's better to do something late, than to never do it at all
دیر آید و شیر آید dir âyad o šir âyad
More languagesFewer languages
better late than never in Vietnamese
thà trễ còn hơn không, có còn hơn không, muộn còn hơn không

Origin of better late than never

Perhaps a calque of Latin potius sero quam numquam from the 4th book of Ab Urbe condita (History of Rome) by Titus Livius, around 27 BC.

Questions about better late than never

What does better late than never mean?
Better late than never means it is better to do something late, than to never do it at all.
What is better late than never in Hindi?
Better late than never in Hindi is जब जाति तब सवेरे (jab jāti tab savere). See Better late than never meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is better late than never?
Better late than never is a proverb.

Words near better late than never in the dictionary

  1. better halves
  2. better hung
  3. better is the enemy of good
  4. better known
  5. better known as
  6. better late than never
  7. better late then never
  8. better light
  9. better loved
  10. better luck next time
  11. better nature

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: better late than never (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-better late than never.wav.

Cite this entry: “better late than never.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/better_late_than_never. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.