Part 8: Spill the Beans
When you spill the beans, you confess, leak a secret, or give away private information. If your friend warns you not to spill the beans, it means he or she doesn't want you to tell anyone his or her secret.
Here are some examples:
(1) "If my sister finds out that I have spilt the beans about the secret party she and I were planning for our mum, she will be furious."
(2) "If I spill the beans, will you promise not to tell anyone else?"
(3) "My co-worker spilt the beans about a new product we were developing, so a competitor learned about it and released her version before we did."
(4) "My colleague spilt the beans that I had found a new job, and my boss learnt about it before I had given my notice of resignation."
The idiom spill the beans goes back to an ancient Greek tradition where a secret society's members voted on whether or not to admit a new member by casting beans into a jar. A white bean counted as a yes vote, while a black bean counted as a no vote.
The votes were supposed to be secret, so if someone accidentally hit the jar and "spilt the beans," he or she would be revealing the secret.
