Aladdin's cave

noun

chiefly British

: a place containing a vast collection of unusual objects

… we found a strange two-storey barn-like building … with a below-street-level Aladdin's cave of dusty old furniture, much of it from the 1920s and 30s …

—Stephen Joyce, In Britain, April 1974

Word History

Etymology

from the cave in a traditional Middle Eastern tale of Aladdin and the magic lamp

First Known Use

1854, in the meaning defined above

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