open sesame

1. 1.

   any very successful means of achieving a result

   Broadermeans
2. 2.

   a magical command; used by Ali Baba

   Broadercommand

Questions about open sesame

What does open sesame mean?

open sesame means "any very successful means of achieving a result". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is open sesame a common word?

open sesame is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.