spill the beans

spill the beans

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /spɪl ðə biːnz/

• Audio (AU)

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Verb

spill the beans (third-person singular simple present spills the beans, present participle spilling the beans, simple past and past participle spilled the beans or spilt the beans)

1. (intransitive, idiomatic) To reveal a secret; to disclose.

   They had planned it as a surprise party, but somebody spilled the beans.

   • April 5 2022, Tina Brown, “How Princess Diana’s Dance With the Media Impacted William and Harry”, in Vanity Fair‎:

     More unsettling was the origin story of the infamous tell-all book Princess in Love. Diana claimed to be outraged in 1994 when Daily Express journalist Anna Pasternak spilled the beans of her affair with former army officer James Hewitt […]

     adapted from the book The Palace Papers, published 2022 by Penguin Books

Translations

to reveal a secret; to disclose

Chinese: Cantonese: 爆料出嚟 (baau3 liu2 ceot1 lai4) Mandarin: 露陷 Finnish: kieliä (fi), paljastaa (fi), laverrella French: cracher le morceau (fr), vendre la mèche (fr) German: ausplaudern (de), auspacken (de), alles verraten Hungarian: elárul (hu), kitálal (hu) Polish: puścić farbę (pl) impf Russian: проговори́ться (ru) pf (progovorítʹsja), проболта́ться (ru) pf (proboltátʹsja) Spanish: irse de la lengua (es), cantar de plano

See also

• spill one's guts
• spill the tea
• let the cat out of the bag