put a hat on a hat

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

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Verb

put a hat on a hat (third-person singular simple present puts a hat on a hat, present participle putting a hat on a hat, simple past and past participle put a hat on a hat)

1. (idiomatic) To do something unnecessary, to go over the top
   • 2017 May 16, Jeffrey Tambor, Are You Anybody?: A Memoir, Crown Archetype, →ISBN:

     "You don't need to put a hat on a hat.” He was saying: If you comment on it, you kill it. If there's a hat already on your head, why in God's name would you put another hat on top of it? The audience doesn't like to see you wink.

   • 2020 November 12, Sarah Grochala, The Theatre of Rupert Goold: Radical Approaches to Adaptation and New Writing, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

     Puccini's music is 'overblown', 'so huge' that there is a danger of putting 'a hat on a hat' if you match 'epic staging with epic music and epic slightly melodramatic acting'. Goold wanted it to feel more like Lars von Trier's musical […]

   • 2021 October 5, Robb Pearlman, Live Like a Vulcan, Love Like a Wookiee, Laugh Like a Hobbit: Life Lessons from Pop Culture, BenBella Books, →ISBN:

     I mean, it's kind of putting a hat on a hat. Nobody thinks a trip to the Hall of Doom is going to be as uplifting as one to the Hall of Justice. Nobody thinks Mount Doom or an abandoned amusement park or chemical factory would make as […]

See also

• overkill