gild the lily
Meaning: To spoil something already perfect by adding to it.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “The cake is lovely as it is; adding sprinkles would be gilding the lily.”
Category: Nature
Origin: A misquotation of Shakespeare's King John (1595), which speaks of trying "to gild refined gold, to paint the lily."
Equivalents in other languages
- Japanese: 蛇足 (dassoku) — literally: Snake legs
- Chinese: 画蛇添足 (huà shé tiān zú) — literally: Drawing legs on a snake
More idioms — Nature
- lightning never strikes twice — An unusual event, lucky or unlucky, is unlikely to happen again in the same way.
- Avoir le vent en poupe — To be doing very well; everything is going your way.
- Avoir la tête dans les nuages — To be a daydreamer; out of touch with reality.
- Jeter de l'huile sur le feu — To make a bad situation worse.
- faire la pluie et le beau temps — Having complete control over a situation or someone's fate.
- être une girouette — Being inconsistent, constantly changing opinions or allegiances.
More English idioms
- borrow trouble — To worry about problems that may never happen.
- act like one owns the place — To behave with arrogant disregard for others.
- once in a lifetime — So rare that it will probably happen only once.
- cook the books — To falsify figures, especially accounts.
- out of one's league — Too good, attractive or expensive for someone to have a chance with.
- no room to swing a cat — A very small or cramped space.
From our untranslatable words
- Magari — One word doing the work of 'if only', 'I wish', 'perhaps' and 'you bet' — the tone decide…
- Sprezzatura — The art of making something difficult look wholly effortless, hiding every trace of the w…
- Dietrologia — The conviction that the official account is never the real one — that some hidden motive…