close the stable door after the horse has bolted

close the stable door after the horse has bolted verb: 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).

Image: Oast House Archive, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

close the stable door after the horse has bolted (third-person singular simple present closes the stable door after the horse has bolted, present participle closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, simple past and past participle closed the stable door after the horse had bolted)

(idiomatic) 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).
- We are now in an election period, with WhatsApp and closed Facebook groups being used, as we speak, in electoral campaigning, but the law has not changed since the DCMS Committee, on which I serve, raised these issues. We have yet another instance of shutting the door after the horse has bolted.2019 May 15, Ian C. Lucas, “WhatsApp Data Breach”, in parliamentary debates (House of Commons), column 242
Synonyms:

close the barn door after the horse has bolted, close the stable door after the horse has been stolen, lock the stable door after the horse has been stolen, lock the stable door after the horse has bolted, shut the stable door after the horse has bolted

close the stable door after the horse has bolted meaning in Tagalog

close the stable door after the horse has bolted in Tagalog

to attempt to prevent a problem that has already occurred: aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo

Synonyms of close the stable door after the horse has bolted

Forms of close the stable door after the horse has bolted

third-person singular present	closes the stable door after the horse has bolted
present participle	closing the stable door after the horse has bolted
past participle	closed the stable door after the horse had bolted
past	closed the stable door after the horse had bolted

Questions about close the stable door after the horse has bolted

What does close the stable door after the horse has bolted mean?: Close the stable door after the horse has bolted means 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).
What is close the stable door after the horse has bolted in Tagalog?: Close the stable door after the horse has bolted in Tagalog is aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo. See Close the stable door after the horse has bolted meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is close the stable door after the horse has bolted?: Close the stable door after the horse has bolted is a verb.
What is the past tense of close the stable door after the horse has bolted?: The past tense of close the stable door after the horse has bolted is closed the stable door after the horse had bolted.

Words near close the stable door after the horse has bolted in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: close the stable door after the horse has bolted (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-close the stable door after the horse has bolted.ogg.

Cite this entry: “close the stable door after the horse has bolted.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/close_the_stable_door_after_the_horse_has_bolted. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.