![[P]](http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium_mh.gif){kind=small}
Spanish Word of the Day Archive
Thursday September 18, 2008
destapar, verb:
to open; to uncover
We saw tapa meaning cover in an earlier Spanish Word of the Day. From it derives destapar, which has several meanings. When referring to bottles, it means to open.
Destapamos una botella para cada uno.
We opened a bottle for each person.
When talking about things such as boxes and pans, it means to take the lid off:
Cuando destaparon la caja sintieron un olor de rosas frescas.
When they took the lid off or opened the box, they smelled the scent of fresh roses.
From the meaning of taking the lid off something, destapar comes to mean to uncover something unsavoury, such as a scandal.
El periodista que destapó el escandalo Watergate.
The journalist who uncovered the Watergate scandal.
Content By
© HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2006. All rights reserved.