open sesame
Any successful means of achieving a result, especially means that are magical or…Any successful means of achieving a result, especially means that are magical or technical, or otherwise beyond the understanding of most people.
Meaning
1 sensesAny successful means of achieving a result, especially means that are magical or technical, or otherwise beyond the understanding of most people.
any very successful means of achieving a result
Translations
3 languagesOrigin
From its use in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, translating French Sésame, ouvre-toi in AnFrom its use in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, translating French Sésame, ouvre-toi in Antoine Galland's version of the Ali Baba story in the One Thousand and One Nights, possibly based on an oral Arabic source.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.