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A stitch in time saves nine

Meaning

A little timely effort will prevent more work later.

Origin

The meaning of this proverb is often asked about at the Phrase Finder Discussion Forum so I'll be explicit. This is nothing to do with rips in the fabric of the space-time continuum, as some have ingeniously suggested. The stitch in time is simply the sewing up of a small tear in a piece of material which will save the need for more stitching at a later date, when the tear has become larger.

The notion has been current in English for a very long time and is first recorded in Thomas Fuller's Gnomologia, Adagies and Proverbs, Wise Sentences and Witty Sayings, Ancient and Modern, Foreign and British, 1732:

"A Stitch in Time May save nine."

Fuller, who recorded a large number of the early proverbs in the language, wrote a little explanatory preamble to this one:

"Because verses are easier got by heart, and stick faster in the memory than prose; and because ordinary people use to be much taken with the clinking of syllables; many of our proverbs are so formed, and very often put into false rhymes; as, a stitch in time, may save nine; many a little will make a mickle. This little artiface, I imagine, was contrived purposely to make the sense abide the longer in the memory, by reason of its oddness and archness."

As far as is known, the first person to record that 'a stitch in time saves nine', rather than Fuller's less confident 'may save nine', was the English astronomer Francis Baily, in his Journal, written in 1797 and published in 1856 by Augustus De Morgan:

"After a little while we acquired a method of keeping her [a boat] in the middle of the stream, by watching the moment she began to vary, and thereby verifying the vulgar proverb, '‘A stitch in time saves nine.'"

See also: the List of Proverbs.