a poor young Chinese boy in a story in The Arabian Nights . A magician (= a person who does magic tricks) asks him to go down into a deep cave full of gold and jewels, but to bring up only an old lamp. Aladdin will not give the magician the lamp until he helps him out of the cave, so the magician shuts him in. Aladdin discovers that when he rubs the lamp, a genie (= a spirit with magic powers) comes out of it. He uses the power of the genie to become rich, defeat the magician and marry a princess. The story of Aladdin is often performed as a pantomime in Britain. The phrase an Aladdin’s cave is sometimes used to mean a place full of wonderful things:
The shop is a real Aladdin’s cave of unusual gift ideas.