To ruin something by overdoing it
The gap between those first two lines is the whole point of a chengyu. It is quoted whole, never assembled, and the literal reading is a picture from the story below rather than a definition — which is why translating the four characters one at a time rarely gets you there.
Servants who had been given one pot of wine agreed that whoever drew a snake first would drink it. One man finished well ahead of the rest and, with time to spare, began adding feet to his snake. Another finished, took the pot and said: snakes have no feet — you have drawn something else.
Source: 《战国策》Strategies of the Warring States, c. 1st century BC
The reading shown is the one each character takes inside this idiom — chengyu keep older readings, so it is not always the everyday one. The meanings are read from the same dictionary that powers the translators.
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画蛇添足 is pronounced huà shé tiān zú and means to ruin something by overdoing it. Literally it says "draw a snake and add feet" — like most chengyu, the literal reading is a picture from a story rather than a definition.
《战国策》Strategies of the Warring States, c. 1st century BC. Servants who had been given one pot of wine agreed that whoever drew a snake first would drink it. One man finished well ahead of the rest and, with time to spare, began adding feet to his snake. Another finished, took the pot and said: snakes have no feet — you have drawn something else.
huà shé tiān zú. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice. Tones here are citation tones, so 一 is written yī even where it is said yí in running speech.
画 (huà) Draw (paint - drawing - painting), 蛇 (shé) Snake (serpent), 添 (tiān) Add (increase - replenish), 足 (zú) Foot (ample - as much as - enough). These meanings come from the same dictionary as the translators on this site, and the reading shown is the one the character takes inside this idiom.
Yes. Chengyu are not archaic — they are ordinary educated speech, and they turn up in conversation, newspapers and exams. This one sits in the beginner band, which reflects how common it is and how hard its characters are.
Rebuild 画蛇添足 from scrambled tiles in the Chengyu Story Puzzle, test yourself on idiom meanings in the Chengyu Quiz, browse all the idioms, or save this one above and review it on your review deck.
Every idiom here comes with the story it was compressed from — that is the rule for being listed, and it is why they stick.
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