Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1500-1600
Origin: Pandora woman in an ancient Greek story who opened a box and let all evils out into the world

Pandora's box

 noun
     
Pan‧do‧ra's box

open a Pandora's box

to do or start something that will cause a lot of other problems:
The report could open up a Pandora's box of claims from similar cases.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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