{
  "id": "too-little-too-late.closing",
  "term": "too little too late",
  "sense": "closing",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 14,
  "arena": "temporal",
  "domain": "windows opening and closing",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "a parameter has drifted past a wall where a thing could be, and the work to move it back arrives after the window closed",
  "folk_gloss": "what was offered was insufficient and came after the chance had passed",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "parameter.condition",
      "drift.aimless",
      "wall.range-end",
      "window.range",
      "work.effort",
      "time.dimension"
    ],
    "interaction": "self",
    "novel_properties": [
      "emergent.window"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "Fukushima's seawall was raised to 15 meters in 2011, after the 14-meter wave breached it and flooded the reactors.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy hours after the US government declined to lend $700 billion.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "The 2015 Paris Agreement set limits on emissions after atmospheric CO₂ had already surpassed 400 ppm.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "too little too late"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "phrases:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.7,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — windows opening and closing"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-too-little-too-late.closing"
}