The genie is out of the bottle

Ha, ha, I’m out, and I’m never going back in again! (Ok, so it’s a lamp. I’m a little more traditional, but you know what I mean.)

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English Idiom: The genie is out of the bottle

Imagine you try to have a surprise party for your brother’s birthday.

You want to keep it on the down low, but when his girlfriend accidentally tells him, the genie is out of the bottle.


You may hear this expression when a secret is not a secret anymore or when a change that cannot be stopped has begun.


You cannot make your brother forget his surprise party because once something is known, it cannot be unknown.

Having genies in lamps is more traditional, but English and English expressions change with the times.

Now, genies come in bottles, not lamps.

I guess they don’t like electricity.


This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).  

On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.  

The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.



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