white elephant
a possession unwanted by the owner but difficult to dispose of: Our Victorian bric-a-brac and furniture were white elephants.
a possession entailing great expense out of proportion to its usefulness or value to the owner: When he bought the mansion he didn't know it was going to be such a white elephant.
an abnormally whitish or pale elephant, usually found in Thailand; an albino elephant.
Origin of white elephant
1Words Nearby white elephant
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use white elephant in a sentence
Torture “is the big white elephant in the room,” said Heba Morayef, a Cairo-based researcher with Human Rights Watch.
Mohamed Morsi’s Great Burden: What’s Next for Egypt | Vivian Salama | June 26, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTJoe Kennedy had acquired it in 1945 for $12.5 million, and turned what seemed a white elephant into a great money maker.
Father Tachard assures us on the contrary, that the white elephant of the king of Siam was rather small, though very old.
Buffon's Natural History. Volume VII (of 10) | Georges Louis Leclerc de BuffonI have come across a large puma that has taken a great fancy to me, and has become somewhat of a ‘white elephant.’
The Devil-Tree of El Dorado | Frank AubreyThe white elephant, richly adorned with gold and jewels, was one of the most beautiful objects in the procession.
Fox's Book of Martyrs | John Foxe
Then you don't look for an early assignment to the white elephant across the Pacific?
The Colonel of the Red Huzzars | John Reed ScottThen I sat down upon my white elephant and shivered, for the chill of autumn was in the air.
The Riddle of the Sands | Erskine Childers
British Dictionary definitions for white elephant
a rare albino or pale grey variety of the Indian elephant, regarded as sacred in parts of S Asia
a possession that is unwanted by its owner
an elaborate venture, construction, etc, that proves useless
a rare or valuable possession the upkeep of which is very expensive
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for white elephant
An unwanted or financially burdensome possession, or a project that turns out to be of limited value: “The new office building turned out to be a white elephant once the company decided to move its headquarters.”
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Other Idioms and Phrases with white elephant
An unwanted or useless item, as in The cottage at the lake had become a real white elephant—too run down to sell, yet costly to keep up, or Grandma's ornate silver is a white elephant; no one wants it but it's too valuable to discard. This expression comes from a legendary former Siamese custom whereby an albino elephant, considered sacred, could only be owned by the king. The king would bestow such an animal on a subject with whom he was displeased and wait until the high cost of feeding the animal, which could not be slaughtered, ruined the owner. The story was told in England in the 1600s, and in the 1800s the term began to be used figuratively.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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