📖 Meaning
To ruin something by adding unnecessary details. Doing extra work that ends up making things worse instead of better.
📜 Origin Story
In a drinking contest, the first man to finish drawing a snake added feet to his drawing to show off, and lost the prize to the second man who pointed out snakes have no feet.
💡 Example Usage
报告已经很完善了，再加这些数据就是画蛇添足。
The report is already perfect; adding these extra figures is just drawing feet on a snake.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 画蛇添足
- Pinyin: huà shé tiān zú
- Literal Translation: draw snake, add feet
- Category: Action
- Characters: 4