# spill the beans

Pronunciation: US say "spil thuh BEENZ" /ˌspɪl ðə ˈbinz/; AUS say "spil-thuh-BEENZ" /ˌspɪl ðə ˈbiːnz/

## Idiom

1. To reveal a secret or let out information.
   - Simple: To tell people a secret.
   - _The company begged reporters not to spill the beans before the official announcement._
   - _Someone on the committee has been spilling the beans to the press for weeks._

## Origin

First recorded in 20th-century American English. One possible origin is an Ancient Greek practice of voting with different-colored beans, where spilling the jar would reveal the results too soon: though this might be folk etymology.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/spill-the-beans (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).