"it's better to ask forgiveness than permission" meaning in English

See it's better to ask forgiveness than permission in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proverb

Forms: it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission [alternative]
Head templates: {{head|en|proverb}} it's better to ask forgiveness than permission
  1. It is better to act decisively and apologize for it later than to seek approval to act and risk delay, objections, etc.
    Sense id: en-it's_better_to_ask_forgiveness_than_permission-en-proverb-I4fb3~lo Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English proverbs, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb"
      },
      "expansion": "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English proverbs",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is better to act decisively and apologize for it later than to seek approval to act and risk delay, objections, etc."
      ],
      "id": "en-it's_better_to_ask_forgiveness_than_permission-en-proverb-I4fb3~lo",
      "links": [
        [
          "decisively",
          "decisively"
        ],
        [
          "apologize",
          "apologize"
        ],
        [
          "approval",
          "approval"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission",
      "tags": [
        "alternative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "proverb"
      },
      "expansion": "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "proverb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English proverbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "It is better to act decisively and apologize for it later than to seek approval to act and risk delay, objections, etc."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "decisively",
          "decisively"
        ],
        [
          "apologize",
          "apologize"
        ],
        [
          "approval",
          "approval"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission"
}

Download raw JSONL data for it's better to ask forgiveness than permission meaning in English (0.8kB)

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (58c391d and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.