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Better late than never

  1. It is better to do something after it was supposed to have been done than not to do it at all.


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Idioms and Phrases

Being tardy is better than not at all, as in We've been waiting for you for an hour—but better late than never . This phrase, first recorded about 1200, appears in several early English proverb collections, often with the added but better never late . Today it is often used in exasperation over a delay, as in the example.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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