Spill the Beans

To spill the beans means to divulge (reveal) a secret.  Most lot of the time people spill the beans unintentionally.

Example:  He spilled the beans and told me that she was getting married.  She wanted to tell me herself. 

However, you can also use this phrase as an imperative to try to get someone to tell you their secret.

Example:  Come on, spill the beans! I want to know who won. 

A lot of sources on the internet will tell you that this phrase comes from the ancient Greeks.  They would vote using beans of different colors.  A white bean meant yes and a dark bean meant no.  After the beans were collected, they would spill the beans to count the votes.  Sometimes the beans would be spilled too early and give away the secret votes.  Unfortunately, I don’t think this nice story is the true etymology.

First of all, the phrase first appears at the start of the 1900s, long after the ancient Greeks.  According to phrases.org.uk, spill has meant to “divulge or let out” for centuries.  It was used to talk about making someone bleed (spill blood).  In 1908, spill the beans appears in The Stevens Point Journal.  In the journal, it means to upset a stable situation by talking and seems to be used to talk mostly about politics.  The meaning changed slightly over time.  Now it means to divulge a secret.

Another similar phrase is spill your guts.  It also means to divulge secret information, but it is usually more emotional than spill the beans.  We have also discussed a similar idiom, let the cat out of the bag.  If you missed it, click here.

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Reference:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/spill-the-beans.html