画蛇添足 huà shé tiān zú
Add feet to a finished snake and you no longer have a snake.
The short answer
画蛇添足 means to add feet to a snake you have just drawn: to ruin something already complete by gilding it. The English cousins are “gilding the lily” and “overkill”.
The story
The Strategies of the Warring States tells of retainers in Chu given one pot of wine — enough for one. They agree to a race: whoever draws a snake on the ground first drinks. One man finishes first, holds up the wine, and — seeing the others still drawing — decides to show off: he adds feet.
While he decorates, the second man finishes his snake and takes the pot: “A snake has no feet. How could you draw one?” The show-off's wine is gone. In the original text the anecdote is advice to a general who, having already won, wanted to press on to a needless conquest.
What it means today
The idiom covers all embellishment that subtracts: the fourth revision of a design, the extra subplot in a tight movie, the paragraph that weakens a strong essay. The snake was fine. The feet were the problem.
Use it when something complete is being “improved” into something worse — the assumption being that the doer mistook polish for progress.
How to use it
Typical shape: 这版方案已经很好了，再改就是画蛇添足, “this draft is already good; further changes would just add feet to the snake”.
In use
2 examples这篇文章结尾已经很有力，加那段名言就是画蛇添足。
The essay's ending is already strong — adding that famous quote just draws feet on the snake.
菜已经够咸了，你又加盐，真是画蛇添足。
The dish was salty enough already, and you added salt — feet on the snake.
The characters
Explore individuallyIndividual character meanings do not always explain the meaning of the whole word.
This guide is original Dengdeng editorial content, offered under CC BY-SA 4.0. The linked dictionary entries adapt CC-CEDICT under the same license.