# 画蛇添足 (huàshétiānzú)

In Mandarin Chinese, 画蛇添足 (huàshétiānzú) means “to ruin by overdoing it”. It is part of the HSK 7–9 vocabulary list in the official HSK 3.0 standard.

- Meaning: to ruin by overdoing it
- Pinyin: huàshétiānzú (hua4 she2 tian1 zu2)
- Traditional: 畫蛇添足
- HSK 3.0 · Level 7–9
- HSK 2.0 · Level 6

## Examples

- 文章再加一段就画蛇添足了。
  Wénzhāng zài jiā yī duàn jiù huàshétiānzú le.
  Adding another paragraph to the article would ruin it by overdoing it.

## Characters

- [画](https://hanziro.com/word/hua-draw/) (huà): to draw; painting
- [蛇](https://hanziro.com/word/she-snake/) (shé): snake; serpent
- [添](https://hanziro.com/word/tian-add/) (tiān): to add; to increase
- [足](https://hanziro.com/word/zu-sufficient/) (zú): sufficient; ample

https://hanziro.com/word/hua-she-tian-zu-ruin-by-overdoing/

Dictionary data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Audio: audio-cmn (CC BY-SA).