七年之病，求三年之艾

qī​nián​zhī​bìng​qiú​sān​nián​zhī'ài

to seek a late cure

(proverb) to seek a long-term cure only after an illness has become chronic; used as a metaphor for waiting until the last minute to find a solution when it is already too late. From Mencius: if a seven-year illness requires mugwort aged for three years to heal, searching for the medicine only when the crisis arrives will be fruitless.

七 (literal) → 七 · qī · seven 年 (literal) → 年 · nián · year 之 (literal) → 之 · zhī · [possessive] 病 (literal) → 病 · bìng · illness ， (non_chinese) 求 (literal) → 求 · qiú · to seek 三 (literal) → 三 · sān · three 年 (literal) → 年 · nián · year 之 (literal) → 之 · zhī · [possessive] 艾 (literal) → 艾 · ài · mugwort

Changed: simplified, traditional, gloss, definition, pinyin, variant pinyin, variants, separable parts, decomposition

created sense May 20, 2026, 07:57 PM