What does “destapar” mean in Spanish?
Crimen y migración en las fronteras de nuestro país
B2 Spanish listening practice · Spanish · Picked for people who know more
Destapar literally means to take the lid or cap off (tapar is “to cover,” de- reverses it), and Spanish uses it constantly for revealing what’s hidden — the news, not the fridge. A channel promo that opens Se vuelven a destapar los secretos de nuestras fronteras (“the secrets of our borders are being uncovered again”) is using the word exactly the way English headlines use “unmask” for a scandal.
The image extends into set idioms: destapar la olla (“to take the lid off the pot”) means to blow a scandal wide open, and in Latin American politics el tapado — “the covered one” — names a candidate whose identity is deliberately kept secret until the moment they’re revealed.
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These words are harder than B2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-ESP 2011 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.