Word.ws English Dictionary

put the genie back in the bottle

put the genie back in the bottle verb: to revert a situation; to put things back as they were before something (usually an unwelcome thing) became a reality.

put the genie back in the bottle: to revert a situation; to put things back as they were before something (usually an unwelcome...
Image: Post of Ajman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

put the genie back in the bottle (third-person singular simple present puts the genie back in the bottle, present participle putting the genie back in the bottle, simple past and past participle put the genie back in the bottle)

  1. (idiomatic) To revert a situation; to put things back as they were before something (usually an unwelcome thing) became a reality.
    • Near-synonym: unring a bell
    • People are very worried about artificial intelligence, but there's no way now to put the genie back in the bottle.

Synonyms of put the genie back in the bottle

Forms of put the genie back in the bottle

third-person singular presentputs the genie back in the bottle
present participleputting the genie back in the bottle
past participleput the genie back in the bottle
pastput the genie back in the bottle

Questions about put the genie back in the bottle

What does put the genie back in the bottle mean?
Put the genie back in the bottle means to revert a situation; to put things back as they were before something (usually an unwelcome thing) became a reality.
What part of speech is put the genie back in the bottle?
Put the genie back in the bottle is a verb.
What is the past tense of put the genie back in the bottle?
The past tense of put the genie back in the bottle is put the genie back in the bottle.

Words near put the genie back in the bottle in the dictionary

  1. put the fear of God into
  2. put the feedbag on
  3. put the finger on
  4. put the fries in the bag
  5. put the frighteners on someone
  6. put the genie back in the bottle
  7. put the hammer down
  8. put the heart across one
  9. put the heat on
  10. put the herd on someone
  11. put the kibosh on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put the genie back in the bottle (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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