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• Too many cooks spoil the broth
  Too many cooks spoil the broth

  When too many people work together on a project, the result is inferior.
• too many cooks spoil the broth
  too many cooks spoil the broth

  Too many persons involved in managing an activity can ruin it, as in Without a conductor, every player had an idea for how the music should go—too many cooks spoil the broth. This expression alludes to each of many cooks adding something to a soup, which finally tastes awful. It was already considered a proverb in 1575 (by George Gascoigne in The Life of P. Care).

Too many cooks spoil the broth

Cultural  

1. When too many people work together on a project, the result is inferior.

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too many cooks spoil the broth Idioms  

1. Too many persons involved in managing an activity can ruin it, as in Without a conductor, every player had an idea for how the music should go—too many cooks spoil the broth. This expression alludes to each of many cooks adding something to a soup, which finally tastes awful. It was already considered a proverb in 1575 (by George Gascoigne in The Life of P. Care).

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Too many cooks spoil the broth too many cooks spoil the broth

Too many cooks spoil the broth, you know.

From Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines The German Spy's Secret by Charles Amory Beach

Too many cooks spoil the broth, and too many celebrities numb our faculty of wonder.

From Without Prejudice by Israel Zangwill

Too many cooks spoil the broth, old chap!”

From With Rifle and Bayonet A Story of the Boer War by F. S. (Frederick Sadleir) Brereton

And, as Amyas sagely remarked, "Too many cooks spoil the broth, and half-a-dozen gentlemen aboard one ship are as bad as two kings of Brentford."

From Westward Ho!, or, the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the county of Devon, in the reign of her most glorious majesty Queen Elizabeth by Charles Kingsley

Too many cooks spoil the broth; and they also resembled a balky team of cross-grained mules pulling, kicking and flinging against one another!

From Project Gutenberg book of Historical Romance of the American Negro by Charles H. Fowler

But with a story-heavy game like this, too many cooks spoil the broth, as they say, so slow and steady it was.

From The Verge ● Jul. 27, 2021

Q: In English, we say too many cooks spoil the broth.

From New York Times ● Jun. 25, 2016

When do too many cooks spoil the broth?

From Forbes ● Jan. 16, 2012

We sometimes hear arguments against collaborating, but in our experience the old adage that too many cooks spoil the broth doesn't hold.

From The Guardian ● Apr. 6, 2011

Let them give lie to the old proverb that too many cooks spoil the broth.

From Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome by Joseph Dommers Vehling