未雨绸缪
- Literal
- before the rain, bind and lash
- Figurative
- To take precautions while there's still time, so you're ready when trouble comes instead of improvising.
Where does 未雨绸缪 come from?
It comes from a poem in the 《诗经》 spoken by a bird whose young have been carried off by an owl. Before the sky clouds over and the rain arrives, the bird strips mulberry roots and uses them to bind the door and window of its nest tight, so it will hold through the coming storm. 绸缪 is precisely that "lashing and binding." The scene left behind the idiom, which no longer speaks of nests but of anyone who prepares in advance: buying insurance, saving money, backing up files before the drive fails.
Source (出处): 《诗经·豳风·鸱鸮》
How is 未雨绸缪 used? Two examples
- 与其等出了问题再补救，不如未雨绸缪。
Rather than waiting for something to go wrong and then patching it up, better to plan ahead.
- 他早早就存了一笔钱，可以说是未雨绸缪。
He set aside a sum of money well in advance; you could say he was covering himself for a rainy day.
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