elephant in the room

English

Etymology

Likely US origin, or possibly from Ivan Andreyevich Krylov's 1814 fable, The Inquisitive Man, which tells of a man going to a museum and noticing all sorts of things apart from an elephant.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

elephant in the room (plural elephants in the room)

1. (idiomatic) A problem or difficult issue that is very obvious, but is ignored for the convenience or comfort of those involved.

   Synonyms: 800-pound gorilla, gorilla in the room

   • 2008 January 6, Nicholas Rufford, “Motormouth: The car of the future, at £1,300”, in Sunday Times (UK)‎^[1]:

     There is an elephant in the room that nearly every politician and green campaigner is ignoring. It’s called population growth.

   • 2022 January 17, Martin Choi, “Macau’s gaming law reforms positive for casino industry, but outlook clouded by Covid-19 uncertainty, UBS, JPMorgan analysts say”, in South China Morning Post‎^[2]:

     While the Swiss bank remained positive on the sector through 2022, the coronavirus situation remained “the elephant in the room,” he added.

Derived terms

• gorilla in the room

Translations

problem that is obvious but ignored

• Albanian: please add this translation if you can
• Amharic: በክፍሉ ውስጥ ዝሆን (bäkfəlu wəsṭ zəhon)
• Arabic: please add this translation if you can
• Armenian: փիղ մեջ տարածությունը (pʻiġ meǰ taracutʻyunə)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 房間裡的大象／房间里的大象 (fángjiān lǐ de dàxiàng)

• Dutch: olifant in de kamer
• Esperanto: elefanto en la ĉambro
• Finnish: vaiettu tosiasia, virtahepo olohuoneessa
• French: l’éléphant dans la pièce (fr)
• Georgian: ადგილში სპილო (adgilši sṗilo)
• German: Elefant im Raum m
• Hebrew: פיל בחדר m (pil ba-ẖéder)
• Hindi: कमरे में हाथी m (kamre mẽ hāthī)
• Hungarian: elefánt a szobában
• Indonesian: gajah di dalam sang kamar
• Italian: elefante nella stanza
• Japanese: 部屋の象 (Heya no zō)
• Korean: 방안의 코끼리 (bang'anui kokkiri)
• Latvian: please add this translation if you can
• Malay: please add this translation if you can
• Persian: please add this translation if you can
• Polish: słoń w salonie (pl) m
• Portuguese: elefante na sala m
• Romanian: elefantul din cameră m
• Russian: слона-то я и не приметил (slona-to ja i ne primetil), скользкая тема (skolʹzkaja tema), не ви́деть ле́са за дере́вьями (ru) (ne vídetʹ lésa za derévʹjami)
• Spanish: elefante en la habitación
• Swedish: elefanten i rummet c
• Thai: ช้างในห้อง (cháang-nai-hɔ̂ng)
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can
• Vietnamese: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• elephant in the room on Wikipedia.Wikipedia