Pandora's box

noun

1. a source of extensive but unforeseen troubles or problems.

   The senate investigation turned out to be a Pandora's box for the administration.

Pandora's box

1. In classical mythology, a box that Zeus gave to Pandora, the first woman, with strict instructions that she not open it. Pandora's curiosity soon got the better of her, and she opened the box. All the evils and miseries of the world flew out to afflict mankind.

To “open a Pandora's box” is to create an uncontrollable situation that will cause great grief.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Pandora's box¹

First recorded in 1570–80

Idioms and Phrases

A source of unforeseen trouble, as in Revising the tax code is opening a Pandora's box. This equivalent for the modern can of worms comes from the Greek legend in which Pandora, entrusted with a box containing the world's ills, is overcome by curiosity and opens it, thereby releasing them. [Late 1500s]

Example Sentences

The podcast “Crimes of the Times,” featuring “Pandora’s Box: The Fall of L.A.’s Sheriff,” is now available wherever you get your podcasts.

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She is joined by Elizabeth “Liza” Goitein from the non-partisan Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, a leading expert on all things Posse Comitatus, the Insurrection Act, and the Pandora’s box of domestic military deployment in policing, and the legal frameworks governing it all.

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"This has opened Pandora's box," says Tena Banjeglav of Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past, an organisation which focuses on reconciliation by taking a factual approach to both World War Two and the more recent war of independence.

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"Vietnam opened a Pandora's box," says another Thai trade official.

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Once this has been done, it would seem that a type of authoritarian Pandora’s Box has been opened.

Read more on Salon