🐾 “let the cat out of the bag”

What it means: To reveal a secret, usually by mistake.

“Grandma let the cat out of the bag about the surprise.”

Where it comes from

At least 18th-century print. The pig-in-a-poke market-fraud tale may explain it or may be a later gloss — the cat in the bag is older on paper than the story told about it.

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More phrases, including proverbs from dozens of languages, at Proverbs of the World.