畫蛇添足

lit. draw legs on a snake (idiom); fig. to ruin the effect by adding sth superfluous / to overdo it

Characters and words in 畫蛇添足

to draw / picture / painting / CL:幅[fu2],張|张[zhang1] / classifier for paintings etc / variant of 劃|划[hua4]

= + + : Helga Horse (hu) decided to make the ashram's bathroom (a4) more beautiful, so she paints (画) her favourite field (田) on the wall using a flute (一). She doesn't watch out for the receptacles (凵) though, and gets shocked as her flute gets stuck in one of them.
variant of 蛇[she2]
snake / serpent / CL:條|条[tiao2]

= + : Sherlock Holmes (sh) is investigating the death of a mosquito (虫) in the elevator's kitchen (e2). He took a blood sample from the mosquito and analyzes it with his computer (它). It turns out that the mosquito stung the venomous snake (蛇) which is sleeping across the hall, and the venom killed the mosquito.
to add / to increase / to replenish

= + : It was very tiring for Mother Theresa (ti) to shame (忝) her opponent during her last rap battle (忝). In front of the anthill (an1) she replenishes (添) her vigor by drinking bottled holy water (氵).
excessive
foot / to be sufficient / ample

= + : Mnemonic symbol: a football. Zapatista Zebra (zu) wants to pimp his football (足) in the space station's kitchen (Ø2). He thinks that a few more vitamins wouldn't hurt, so he extracts the vitamins from a mandarin (口) with a syringe (龰) to inject them into his football.

Words with 畫蛇添足

畫蛇添足 is not used as a component in another word.

Sentences with 畫蛇添足

畫蛇添足 currently does not appear in any sentence.