叠床架屋 — “To add superfluous layers or details”

Q: What is the Chinese definition of 叠床架屋?

床上搁床，屋上架屋。比喻重复、累赘。

叠床架屋 is a Chinese idiom (chengyu) meaning “to add superfluous layers or details”. To be unnecessarily repetitive or redundant, often leading to a clumsy or over-elaborate style. Literally, “Pile beds, build houses”.

Frequency

叠床架屋 Pronunciation and Pinyin

叠床架屋 Character Breakdown

Stroke Order

Character	Pinyin	Strokes	Meaning
叠	dié	13	overlap, fold, pile up
床	chuáng	7	bed
架	jià	9	frame, support, set up
屋	wū	9	house, room, building

Example Sentence with 叠床架屋

这篇文章的论点本来很清晰，但作者过度引用资料，导致内容有些叠床架屋，反而模糊了重点。

The argument in this article was originally very clear, but the author over-quoted sources, making the content somewhat repetitive and overly elaborate, thus blurring the main point.

Origin and Story of 叠床架屋

During the Southern Dynasties period, Mao Leng of Southern Qi, along with his father Mao Huiyuan and uncle Mao Huixiu, were all renowned painters.

Their works each possessed unique strengths and weaknesses. Huiyuan's paintings were characterized by their free-flowing and unconstrained style, while Huixiu's were meticulously detailed and precise.

Mao Leng's compositions, however, were not considered as skilled as those of his father and uncle. Although he painted swiftly, his brushwork lacked ingenuity. His compositional style was described as piling one bed upon another or building one house on top of another, indicating a lack of originality and excessive redundancy.