🤖 Literally, in English
“A spoon of tar in a barrel of honey.”
Ложка дьогтю в бочці меду. Lozhka diohtiu v bochtsi medu
🤨 What does it ACTUALLY mean? →
🇬🇧 What you'd actually say
“One small thing spoils the whole thing.”
also: “It's the one flaw that ruins it.” · “One bad detail spoils everything.”
- 📖 Meaning
- A single small problem ruins something otherwise good.
- 💡 Why it's funny
- English ruins a barrel with fruit. Ukrainian ruins it with wood tar, which is both more decisive and much harder to explain to guests.
- 🧭 Closest English idiom
- “One bad apple spoils the barrel.”
- 📝 Explanation
- Used about an excellent evening with one bad moment, a good product with one flaw, a good team with one difficult person.
- 🏛 Cultural context
- Birch tar was a common household substance in rural Ukraine — cheap, useful, and famous for its overpowering smell.
🧠 Learn
- spoil (verb) — to ruin the quality or enjoyment of something — зіпсувати “The rain spoiled our picnic.”
- flaw (noun) — a small fault that makes something less good — вада, недолік “The plan has one serious flaw.”
🗣 In context
Вечір був чудовий, але його коментар — ложка дьогтю в бочці меду.
The evening was lovely, but his comment spoiled the whole thing.
🎧 Hear the contrast
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