Idiom
elephant in the room
Meaning
A problem or difficult issue that is very obvious, but is ignored for the convenience or comfort of those involved.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“Everyone ignored the elephant in the room during the meeting.”
“Her messy breakup is the elephant in the room at the party.”
“The huge debt is the elephant in the room for the young couple.”
“We all knew the project was failing, but nobody wanted to address the elephant in the room.”
“The fact that the manager is leaving next week is the elephant in the room that no one mentions during our lunch break.”
“When the two rivals had to work together, their past argument became the elephant in the room that made everyone feel uncomfortable.”
“Despite the mounting tension at the dinner table, the family chose to ignore the elephant in the room, focusing instead on trivial matters of the day.”
Examples
simple
“Everyone ignored the elephant in the room during the meeting.”
“Her messy breakup is the elephant in the room at the party.”
“The huge debt is the elephant in the room for the young couple.”
contextual
“We all knew the project was failing, but nobody wanted to address the elephant in the room.”
“The fact that the manager is leaving next week is the elephant in the room that no one mentions during our lunch break.”
“When the two rivals had to work together, their past argument became the elephant in the room that made everyone feel uncomfortable.”
complex
“Despite the mounting tension at the dinner table, the family chose to ignore the elephant in the room, focusing instead on trivial matters of the day.”
Origin
The image appears in Ivan Krylov's fable 'The Inquisitive Man' (1814), about a museum visitor who notices everything but the elephant; Dostoevsky later referenced it, and the idiom spread in 20th-century English.
Key words
Related idioms
- Level
- B1 · Intermediate
- Updated