# Tower of Babel

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/tower-of-babel
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

A grand, over-ambitious project that collapses into confusion and a breakdown in communication.

## Examples

- The meeting became a Tower of Babel, with everyone talking at once.
- Without a shared plan, the international project turned into a Tower of Babel of clashing standards and half-built modules.
- What began as a coordinated launch degenerated into a Tower of Babel, each department building to its own specification until the pieces no longer fit together.

## Origin

The story is told in Genesis 11. In it the whole earth still speaks a single language, and the people settling in Shinar decide to build a city with a tower reaching to the heavens — a monument to their own name, so that they will not be scattered. God, seeing what a unified and unchecked humanity might attempt, confounds their speech so that no one can understand anyone else. The work halts, the builders scatter across the earth, and the unfinished tower is called Babel — a name the text links by pun to a Hebrew verb meaning to confuse. In English a Tower of Babel is any ambitious undertaking that dissolves into noise and cross-purposes, especially one wrecked less by the size of the task than by people talking past one another.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.